Joel Gelman, MD

Dr. Sayeh Lavasani is a board-certified UCI Health medical oncologist who specializes in the diagnosis, treatment and management of breast cancer. She has more than a decade of experience providing systemic breast cancer treatments, including chemotherapy, endocrine therapy, targeted therapy, monoclonal antibodies and immunotherapy. Lavasani earned her medical degree at Iran University of Medical Sciences in Teheran. She completed an internship and residency in internal medicine at Queen's University School of Medicine in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, and received additional residency training in medical oncology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Next, she received postdoctoral fellowship training in breast cancer at the University of Toronto in Ontario, where she also earned a master's degree in epidemiology and healthcare research. She comes to UCI Health and UCI School of Medicine from City of Hope in Duarte, Calif., where she served as director of inpatient medical oncology services and was the principle investigator on numerous national and international clinical studies. She is the author of numerous publications in peer-reviewed journals, including a recent phase 2 study on the de-escalation of neoadjuvant treatment of HER2 positive breast cancer, which is her primary research focus. Lavasani, who is also fluent in Farsi, is passionate about preventing breast cancer and has served as vice chair of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network's committee on breast cancer prevention.

Dr. Michael J. Nisco is a board-certified UCI Health physician who specializes in family medicine and hospice and palliative medicine. He earned his medical degree at the UCI School of Medicine, followed by a residency in family medicine at UCI Medical Center in Orange.

Dr. Shirin Attarian is a board-certified UCI Health medical oncologist who focuses on treating patients with head and neck cancer.She earned her medical degree at Shahid Beheshti Medical University in Tehran, Iran. She pursued a post-doctoral research fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital, followed by a residency in internal medicine and fellowship in hematology/oncology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. Prior to joining UCI, Attarian served as an assistant professor at Northwell Health Cancer Institute in New York.Attarian's research interests include evaluating innovative treatment protocols for patients with head and neck cancer in clinical trials, improving the quality of life and symptoms in patients with head and neck cancer and clinical-epidemiological studies of head and neck cancer.She is deeply committed to providing leading-edge, compassionate, personalized, evidence-based and multidisciplinary care to her patients.Attarian, who also speaks Farsi, sees patients at the UCI Health Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center in Orange.