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Dixie J. Mills, MD, FACS
is a Harvard-trained general surgeon who has been specializing in breast care since 1989. She has worked with Dr. Susan Love at her breast clinic and with the Mind-Body Clinic in Boston. She believes in working with women to understand, clarify and trust their choices relating to breast care, whether it is performing self examination, treating breast pain, getting a mammogram, or obtaining breast cancer options. Viewing breast diseases as messages to women's nurturing strengths, Dixie urges women to find their own guidance and power through political, spiritual, physical and/or psychological means. Using her surgical and medical tools, Dr. Mills sees herself as an ally with each woman's unique healing process. Before attending medical school at the University of Massachusetts, Dixie worked at a nationally known education / prevention program as a teacher trainer. While practicing in Boston, she was co-founder of the Breast Cancer High-Risk Clinic at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.

Why Do I Have This Web Site?
After working in Boston at Susan Love's Breast Center, Faulkner Hospital, Deaconess Hospital, Mt. Auburn Hospital and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, I elected to move to Maine in 1995 for both personal and professional reasons. I could see that there was some obvious connection to hormones that I wanted to know more about. Women to Women in Yarmouth, Maine, was the emerging leader of cutting edge women's health. Dr. Christiane Northrup's first book had just come out; she was stepping out of direct patient care and they were looking for a new person to join them. The time could not have been better. Hospitals in Boston were becoming more interested in who was merging with whom and who could save the most money, rather than innovative health care. Besides, the traffic was awful. My son was seven and I thought it was a good time to make a move if I ever was going to do it, and what a perfect place to raise a child — Maine! I joke with Susan Love that she decided to write a book about hormones; I decided to jump right into it with real patients.

Dr. Dixie Mills at work.

I still practice at Women to Women and at the Maine Medical Center's Breast Care Center. I have had the honor to be the doctor for so many wonderful women over the years, and heard so many (too many) stories of pain, anxiety, triumph and peace. I realized that I answer certain questions every day over and over. I think that women are now doing a lot of reading about breast cancer issues, and I am glad they are, but something is still missing. So I decided to put together this website to answer some of those questions. I refer you to links to traditional and standard answers, but offer some of my personal ideas that I have learned in the last twelve years, and many that I have learned from my patients. I realize I don't have THE ANSWER. Despite growing up on Nancy Drew books, wanting to be a detective and realizing I must have a ton of clues from all my patients, I still cannot see any clear rhyme or reason to WHY so many women, particularly the young ones, are getting breast cancer. Nor do I have the perfect cure to prevent breast cancer from coming back, but I will share some of my patients efforts and stories and let you take what you want. I hope by providing information and links in this website and by inspiring others to keep asking more questions, our daughters and granddaughters will not have to go through the fear and dread that my generation does.

The content provided by this site is Dr. Mills's personal opinions and is for educational purposes only and is in no way intended to substitute for the reommendations of your personal health care professional.

We encourage Internet users to be careful when using medical information. If you are unsure about your medical condition, consult a physician.