Northwell Health Physician Partners Smith Institute for Urology at the Waldbaum Center

Antonio Alfonso, MD, is vice chair of surgery and director of surgical education at Northwell Health. He specializes in head and neck endocrine surgery and sees patients with thyroid and parathyroid tumors. Dr. Alfonso’s father, a surgeon and academic, had a big influence on his son’s career choice. “My father was disciplined and ethical, and the type of doctor I wanted to be,” he says. Today, Dr. Alfonso has more than 50 years of surgical experience behind him and has trained hundreds of surgical residents. Dr. Alfonso earned his medical degree at the University of the Philippines and completed his residency in general surgery at Temple University Hospital. He continued his training with a fellowship in surgical oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He arrived at Northwell in 2017 from State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate Medical Center, where he was a distinguished teaching professor and Clarence & Mary Dennis chair of the department of surgery. The safe and effective surgical removal of thyroid and parathyroid tumors with excellent cosmetic results is Dr. Alfonso’s standard of care. He values team-based treatment plans and routinely works with nuclear medicine imaging specialists, endocrinologists, other head and neck surgeons, radiation oncologists and medical oncologists. They meet on a weekly basis to discuss strategies for managing especially complex tumors. Dr. Alfonso has served in numerous regional and national leadership positions; he has served as governor-at-large of the American College of Surgeons and as president of the New York Surgical Society, New York Head and Neck Society, Tri-Borough Directors of Surgery Association and president of the New York Cancer Society. Dr. Alfonso has published more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific papers and textbook chapters. Earlier in his career, he was instrumental in developing bloodless surgery for cancer patients, an approach that avoids blood transfusions during procedures. He has also received the distinction of meeting the Castle Connelly Top Doctor criteria for 20 consecutive years. For Dr. Alfonso, establishing long-term relationships with his patients is one of the best parts of his job. “I really get to know people,” he says. “In fact, patients from years ago call me up—I still have the same cell phone number—asking me to see a family member. That’s the type of practice I have.”

Dr. Carleton, MD, is Associate Chief of the R.J. Zuckerberg Cancer Center at the Northwell Health Cancer Institute. Dr. Carleton, an expert in the treatment of breast cancer, joined the staff at North Shore University Hospital in 2002. A Massachusetts native, Dr. Carleton graduated from the University of Massachusetts Medical School and completed both her residency in Internal Medicine and fellowship in Hematology/Oncology at Tufts Medical Center in Boston. She then conducted two years of hematology research at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. Since joining the Northwell Health System she has focused her career primarily on breast cancer, including breast cancer prevention and the management of early stage and advanced breast cancer. She is actively involved in multidisciplinary disease oriented care models for these diseases. In addition to patient care she is actively involved in the education of medical students, residents and fellows, and participates in clinical research on breast cancer. She is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Hofstra Northwell School of Medicine.

Veena John, MD, is the System Head for Gynecologic Oncology for the Northwell Health Cancer Institute and an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell. Board certified in Internal Medicine, Hematology and Medical Oncology, she maintains an active practice caring for patients with gynecologic cancers where she focuses on providing compassionate, personalized, evidence-based multi-disciplinary care. In conjunction with physicians in Surgical Oncology, she pioneered a multi-disciplinary team approach for gynecologic oncology patients at the R.J. Zuckerberg Cancer Center where her practice is based. Dr. John is a highly experienced principal investigator for industry sponsored Phase I, II and III clinical trials in gynecologic oncology. She is the site principal investigator for the NRG cooperative group for the Northwell Health Cancer Institute and co-chair of the protocol review monitoring committee. Dr. John earned her medical degree from Christian Medical College in India, where she also completed her internal medicine internship. She completed her internal medicine residency at Flushing Medical Center and fellowship in hematology and medical oncology at North Shore University Hospital. She is an active member of the Society for Gynecologic Oncology, Society for Immunotherapy in Cancer, American Society of Clinical Oncology and American Society of Hematology as well as a member of the Ovarian Cancer committee for the national Gynecologic Oncology Group.