Debbie Webb

Debbie Webb lives in Arkansas and loves to travel with her husband to Florida, Cozumel and Puerto Vallarta. But when it came to breast reconstruction surgery after her double mastectomies, she knew it was time for a trip to Dallas.

"I go to the beach a lot. I spend a lot of time in a bathing suit and I didn't want to do implants," the active grandmother of three (soon to be four) said. "I figured this is me and my body."

There weren't any surgeons in Arkansas who offered the reconstruction procedure she wanted to have performed. Debbie found Frederick Duffy, MD, at Medical City Dallas with the help of her physician daughter, relatives in North Dallas and the internet. She called, scheduled an appointment and traveled 400 miles.

"He was very patient. He answered all my questions," she said. "The staff was amazing. I just can't say enough good things about them. I might not have been able to have the DIEP Flap without them."

The DIEP Flap uses tissue from the abdominal area to create a breast, thereby providing an all-natural-tissue reconstruction. There are only a handful of surgeons around the country providing the DIEP Flap.

"Instead of Build-A-Bear we did some Build-A-Boobs!" laughed Debbie.

She went in for the 11-hour surgery at 6 a.m. in April 2008. "The last thing I remember, Dr. Duffy was there with me in the prep room for the OR. When I woke up he was sitting beside me and I said, ‘gee that didn't take long.'"

She spent four days in the hospital recovering and couldn't have asked for a better experience. Debbie still corresponds with the staff on a regular basis through email and phone calls.

"Patients like Debbie, who have researched their options and are proactive about their own healthcare, are the ideal patients. And with her sense of humor and bright outlook, Debbie has always been a delight to have in the office," said one of Dr. Duffy's nurse navigators.

"Everybody at Medical City Dallas was awesome. I was very impressed with the fact they had all RNs coming in," Debbie said. "The care was awesome. The facility was awesome. Their food was even good. I was ordering from a menu which was pretty cool."