June Y. Hou, MD

Dr. Prager is Professor of Clinical Medicine, Director of Clinical Ethics and Chairman of the Medical Ethics Committee at Columbia University Medical Center. He spent two years in the Indian health Service practicing general medicine on the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation in South Dakota after his medical internship. Dr. Prager held clandestine medical clinics in the Soviet Union during a visit to Refuseniks in 1986, and later set up the first U.S. - Soviet medical student exchange program between Columbia P&S and the First Moscow Medical Academy. Dr. Prager has been a pulmonologist for over 35 years. He is heavily involved in teaching pulmonology and medical ethics to medical students, house officers and nurses. His writings on medicine and medical ethics have appeared in medical journals and textbooks as well as on the Op-Ed pages of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Dr. Prager is a regular guest lecturer in Israel for the Ben Gurion University MD Program in International Health and Medicine in collaboration with Columbia University Health Sciences. He has received honors for his teaching, clinical expertise, contributions to organ donation, and medical humanism.

Luona Sun, MD is a board-certified breast surgeon trained in minimal invasive nipple sparing mastectomy, skin sparing mastectomy, intraoperative radiation therapy and various frontline localization skills. She is also an active researcher, focusing on rare diagnoses like small cell carcinoma in breast cancer and high risk lesion management in patients with coexisting cancer. One of her major research interests is in Asian American breast cancer disparities. Dr. Sun received her undergraduate degree from SUNY Stony Brook University, her medical degree from SUNY Buffalo, and completed her general surgery residency at New York Presbyterian Queens/Weill Cornell Medical Center before coming to Columbia for her fellowship training. Over the course of that time, she earned several honors for her research work, including winning the Theresa and Eugene Lang Research Award and presenting her international collaboration with China’s 301 General Hospital at the American Society of Breast Surgeons 2019. Dr. Sun can conduct surgical consultations in Chinese as well as English.

Dr. Roshni Rao, a renowned expert in breast care, is the chief of the Breast Surgery Program at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. A skilled surgeon who is passionate in her commitment to breast health and her patients, Dr. Rao has expertise in the treatment of breast cancer that has spread to the areas surrounding the breast, known as locally advanced breast cancer; in addition to breast cancer that has spread further to other parts of the body, metastatic breast cancer. Her groundbreaking research includes the positive effects of exercise for patients with breast cancer who are preparing for surgery, and the impact of ethnicity on the risk of developing triple-negative breast cancer (when the three receptors known to fuel most breast cancers; estrogen, progesterone, and the human epidermal growth factor receptor 2; are not present in the cancer tumor). Dr. Rao oversees the breast cancer surgery program at the Comprehensive Breast Center of the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia, a multi-site, multi-disciplinary entity that incorporates the legacy of innovation and trust associated with the Columbia University Irving Medical Center. She collaborates closely with its team of specialists across every discipline, including radiologists, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, plastic surgeons and other breast cancer support staff. Dr. Rao was repeatedly recognized with awards for her leadership at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, where she served as the director of the George N. Peters Center for Breast Surgery prior to joining NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia. She was elected by her peers to be a "Best Doctor" in breast surgery every year from 2009 to 2017. Dr. Rao received her medical degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine. She completed a general surgery residency at Baystate Medical Center/Tufts University School of Medicine, followed by a fellowship in breast surgical oncology at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. She is a fellow of the American College of Surgeons and a member of the Society of Surgical Oncology. She is currently the chair of the Patient Safety and Quality Committee for the American Society of Breast Surgeons. Dr. Rao serves as a reviewer for the Journal of the American Medical Association and the Annals of Surgical Oncology, and has served as a reviewer for Cancer and other journals. Her work has been published in these journals and many other surgical and oncology publications.