Kristen A. Zarfos, MD, FACS
Medical Director
Breast Surgeon, Specializing in Breast Health
Breast Cancer care
Trinity of New England, St. Francis Hospital
Hartford, CT
Kristen A. Zarfos, MD, FACS, is a senior attending breast surgeon and Medical Director of the Karl C. Krapek Comprehensive Women’s Health Center at Saint Francis Hospital , a member of Trinity Health of New England, in Hartford , Connecticut.
She is a clinical associate professor of surgery at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine. She is a fellow in the American College of Surgeons.
She is a graduate of University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore , Maryland. She completed her general surgical residencies at Yale-New Haven Hospital and Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts ,where she also served as Chief Resident and as a medical teaching fellow with the Tufts University Program.
She is past president of the Connecticut Chapter of the American College of Surgeons, past member of the New England Surgical Society Executive Committee as representative to the Advisory Council to the American College of Surgeons, served for a decade on the patient advocacy Committee of NSABP, a national breast cancer research organization, as well as having received multiple citations and awards for her advocacy on breast cancer and women’s health.
She is an advocate for women’s health in the public arena. In 1997 she was recognized at the State of the Union by President Clinton for her advocacy for women with breast cancer who were being denied hospitalization after undergoing the loss of their breast for cancer treatment. Her work with Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro and an amazing national grassroots movement of over 10 million women lead to the passage of a law in the US Congress' House of Representatives by an overwhelming majority , protecting women with breast cancer from denial of care. Twenty states, including Connecticut that took the lead, also passed protective legislation for women with breast cancer.
Presently, in addition to practicing breast health and cancer care, she is recognized for her strong interest in women’s comprehensive health, delivering evidence based talks to the public and to health care professionals, not only on breast heath and breast cancer, but also on specific aspects of women’s overall health, with the goal of empowering women with the facts about how to improve and maximize their health.
Central to her current advocacy is what she has learned about health care inequities from patients during her medical education in Baltimore, Maryland, followed by giving care to women with breast cancer in low-income areas of Hartford, Connecticut for a decade.
Specifically ,she has worked with funding from the Connecticut Breast Health Initiative, the Connecticut NAACP, Sister’s Journey — an advocacy group of African American breast cancer survivors, countless churches, and a group of committed outreach workers and patients to educate the public on the disparities in breast cancer risk, incidence, age of onset, and outcomes in Black women.
Her goal is to bring the facts to Black women and their providers in order to empower them with the facts with the outcome of earlier detection and improvement of survival in Black women who are diagnosed with breast cancer at a much younger age than women of other ethnicities.
