Endometriosis Foundation of America: - Blossom Ball 2010
Thank you, thank you, and thank you.
There are almost 38 tables here. You all came for a cause, and it is a grand cause for us, for many women, for many men, many husbands, boyfriends, families; America’s backbone, that is endometriosis. We believe that. It is like an underlying cause of many things, one of the most misdiagnosed, mistreated, and mismanaged, and it affects everyone, every corner of society, and is a multi-dimensional disease.
We had a great conference at the New York Academy of Sciences today. Believe it or not, believe it not, people came from Brazil, from London, from Stanford, from Yale, from MIT; they are all here at these tables. They have been part of our force.
I really owe so much to them, and most of all, obviously, our face of endometriosis, Padma. We owe her so much. She gave such a touching talk today and then you realize some people have gift that they can speak from their heart. They can speak their feelings, what they have been through and, you know what, people identify with that. We doctors only treat individuals. They kind of treat masses, people find a cause through them, and they really look forward, the way they speak. Padma was gorgeous today, the way she spoke, she can really express it. I have not seen anybody who can express their feelings as well as she does and I would like to give applause to Padma. You know I do not have a prepared speech or anything like that, so basically I really appreciate it.
We are a new foundation and I think we are in the right cause. There are people here from my hospital, the administration is here, and they have been very supportive in what we do. There are many doctors here from Mount Sinai and from other places. Thank you for coming, thank you for coming!
This is a great cause and you will see this cause growing and growing. We will be one. We are like one river, we will be the big sea, and we will be big waves. We are going to make sounds and everybody will hear us. The bottom line is no woman should suffer unnecessarily due to mis-information, mis-management, and mis-treatment. We are here to help. We will do everything to change that.
Thank you very much. I would like to invite someone who is very special, he comes from Stanford. He is a man who sacrificed himself for this cause. Last year we honored someone like him, which was Harry Reich. He is here tonight. However, this man also, single-handedly, made a revolution in surgery; he brought the video camera into surgery in the late 80s. Nobody used video camera in surgery until Camran Nezhat. I would like to honor him tonight and ask him to join me at the podium.
