Dr. William Russell Grace, MD

I have had elevated D-dimers and no one could explain what was happening to me. I have been to many doctors, other hematologists and they did not even discuss my diet and other factors that could be contributing to what was happening to me. The fact that Dr. Grace discusses these healthy options means he understands that starting at the simplest aspect first is the best way to treat human beings. He is not trying to make me a patient for life and for that, I would recommend everyone I know to see him. He does care and that is rare in medicine.

Even with a personal phone call from a collaborating doctor, a direct conversation stating he would see us, he didn't show up. With lives at stake here, maybe this guy needs to go count his money and let better, more caring doctors take over from him.

I first learned of Dr. Grace almost 20 years ago, when a friend of mine had bad breast cancer. Her surgeon at Sloan-Kettering had been handpicked by a leading figure at Harvard Medical School, but when her doctors at Sloan-Kettering told her there was nothing more they could do to help her, she started seeing Dr. Grace, who enabled her to stay alive for another four years. Of course, by the time she started seeing him, her cancer was very advanced, or she might have lived. Not only did Dr. Grace test her tissue to find out which chemotherapy worked best. He also did something very innovative at that time. When an organ was very diseased, he would sometimes deliver the chemo directly to the organ rather than to the whole body, enabling him to give much more of the chemo than he otherwise could. I remember my friend’s doctors at her satellite hospital in Connecticut expressing great consternation when they received Dr. Grace’s orders for treatment. But several years later, I… happened to read a big article in the New York Time’s about a major study that showed that against all expectations, this method of delivering chemo was more effective and had better outcomes for patient longevity than the standard method of delivering it to the whole body. Dr. Grace had the courage to do what was best for his patients, rather than what was safer for himself because it was conventional. Also, as head of oncology research for 20 years at St. Vincent’s hospital, Dr. Grace was way ahead of the rest of the medical profession in his ideas about diet. Dr Grace’s ideas about cancer and diet, that he taught his patients in the early 80s, have only later been adopted by major medical centers. I also had a friend of a friend who would fly to see Dr. Grace on her private plane when she had late stage cancer. She could have seen anyone, and she chose Dr. Grace. Again, unfortunately, she didn’t start seeing him until late in her treatment. I strongly urge anyone who is reading this review, and thinking of going to a name-brand cancer institution instead, to at least see Dr. Grace for a second opinion. It would be crazy to undergo chemotherapy without first having it tested on your cancerous tissue to find out which one works best for no more than the cost of a family summer vacation. It’s the world’s best bargain. I feel extremely blessed to be able to see Dr. Grace at the beginning of my cancer prognosis. I know his family, and know him to be not only one of the best oncologists in the country, but a man of exceptional moral character whose advice and treatment I can totally trust.

My daughter died of metastatic breast cancer five years ago at age 42. She was diagnosed at Stage Four. At one desperate point during her three years of treatment at NYU and Mt. Sinai, she heard about Dr. Grace, and we went to see him. He said he could definitely help her, even cure her. Did she want to die? I remember he asked her rhetorically. No, of course not. Then she needed the aggressive treatment he offered. First he took numerous biopsies at one visit from her afflicted breast and submitted them for analysis to a doctor he had complete faith in who would tell us what kind of chemo treatment she needed. (This cost about $4,000 out of pocket.) Then he would give her that chemo every two weeks for eight months. Either before or after the treatment, her choice, she would go to Lenox Hill Hospital where a surgeon, one Dr. Grace had trained in the procedure, would inject strong doses of chemo into a vein or artery in her inner thigh; the chemo would travel to her breast and flood… the cancer. She decided to have this done before the eight-month treatment. But she had a bad reaction, and her breast and chest became severely inflamed. The problem was that Dr. Grace had left on a vacation. He had told us we could reach him at any time, but we weren't able to reach him at all. St. Vincent's had just closed and he was carrying on his practice in his office across the street in a medical building. The staff for whatever reason weren't helpful. My daughter went back to NYU, they did blood work and found that her white cell count was dangerously low, and gave her a transfusion. The inflamed chest turned brown and stayed that way. We went to see Dr. Grace on his return from vacation. He professed to be angry and disgusted at his staff for not reaching him. He promised to speak with a doctor we'd consulted with at NYU and had faith in. My girl still had a hope she could somehow continue with him, but he never took or returned the NYU doctor's calls. My daughter never went back to Dr. Disgrace, as we began to call him, but I'm still in shock from his behavior.

He saved my life- 36 years later !

Dr. William Grace assured me and my family that he would care for my mother, as he would for his own mother. My mother did not survive his care and with many lingering questions, and attempts to reach him or Lenox Hill Hospital administrators, I have no other choice but to pursue a NYS Department of Health investigation. Dr. Grace has refused to answer questions related to my mother's rapidly deteriorating condition. Chemotherapeutic meds went missing on the hospital floor which made her miss critical days of treatment. His lack of medical and moral ethics and indifference to patient's and family suffering during my mother's final months of struggle are proof that he was the absolute worst choice.

He saved my dad's life. I'm so grateful for his expertise. Dr grace us a doctor that looks for solutions and generally finds them.

My family member did not have a good outcome following treatment with Dr. Grace. With cancer treatment, of course, this is often the case, even with the best medical care. What my family and I fault Dr. Grace for is for falling short of honesty and professionalism. He is indeed charming, as one reviewer pointed out -- but he failed (at least in our case) to tell us the truth of our father's condition and instead continued to urge very aggressive treatment without reservation or caveats. Finally, he abandoned his patient when the situation became dire. After the surgery following chemo, the surgeon and nurses told us that was really going on, but by that point, it was too late to make a decision for quality of life. The organ tissues were completely destroyed by the chemo and so surgery to remove the cancerous tissue could not proceed. And despite our family having calmly asked Dr. Grace along the way whether the aggressive treatments were the best option, he insisted that they would be… successful and used his charm to shut the conversations down, smiling and reassuring us. How we would have appreciated him saying something like, "This is extremely aggressive treatment, your father is in a very compromised condition, and you as a family need to decide whether you are comfortable with this course of treatment. You do have the option of preserving quality of life for the time he has left. We can never guarantee outcomes." Instead, he gave glib reassurances to our father, and continued cheerleading for more and more aggressive treatments. At the end, the hospital staff was unable to reach him over several days when we had crucial decisions to make -- he simply would not respond to phone calls to his staff, and he was not on vacation. He did not call to check on, or visit, our father after the aborted surgery. A resident made a small error which lead to a quick decline and far more suffering than was necessary -- for our father and for the family. It was obvious the staff had seen this behavior before and were used to telling patients that they were indeed placing calls to Dr. Grace but that he wouldn't call back. There was no reason for him to be afraid to tell us things weren't working out. Obviously, we knew that was possible. He just did not want to be there to face the disappointment of the person he had treated as an experiment and the family to whom he had said "oh, we're gonna cure him!". A doctor cannot make such reassurances as he did while selling a set of extremely aggressive treatments. And he cannot ignore his patients when it comes time to let the patient know that things are not going well. Obviously, the patient and family know that outcomes are not guaranteed. They are owed the dignity of being told that despite all the best efforts, the treatment compromised the patient and will hasten a bad outcome. And the oncologist certainly cannot ignore phone calls from the floor when his patient is post surgery and dying. People in far less lofty professions would be fired for such behavior. On a related point, patients deserve to know upfront that they do have options for less aggressive treatments, even if those treatments would be handled by someone other than Dr. Grace. By marketing his techniques to patients desperate for a cure, he is depriving some of a few more months of life they might choose to have with less invasive treatment. It is irresponsible to not at least give patients that caveat. Get several opinions for your treatment, or that of a loved one. If you choose to work with Dr. Grace on more invasive treatments than other doctors might have suggested for you, be prepared that you may not get an accurate set of the pros and cons of a particular treatment from Dr. Grace and that if things don't go well, Dr. Grace may deprive you of answers when you need them, by staying away from the hospital and staff. He may indeed be the right doctor with the right strategy for you. He will be pleasant and friendly when you deal with him. But I would suggest getting several other opinions before you commit to treatment with him. I have since had another family go through cancer treatment and eventually die, but with a different oncologist. That doctor managed our expectations up front, suggested pain management, more gentle treatment and a focus on quality of life. As a result, we had a few good years of cherishing happy moments with this relative, and a few more years for the small children to grow and be able to have some memories of him. What a difference.

Words cannot express how grateful I am for finding Dr. Grace. Last May I came to him with Stage IV breast cancer, which had spread to my hip, lymph nodes, and most likely lungs. I was laying on the couch wheezing after trying many holistic treatments. Luckily my friend referred me to him, as I knew I need to finally do something agressive.In one procedure at Lenox Hill, I had my port installed and had a regional profusion to the left breast. The size of my tumor (which had largely replaced my left breast) shrank down within several weeks. It was amazing! I also had a biopsy done in order to determine which chemo drugs were most effective for my cancer (the Weisenthal approach). I then had chemotherapy every 2 weeks. I had some nausea and fatigue, and I did lose my hair, but those were my main complaints, and had pretty good energy throughout. 8 months later I'm happy to say I'm in a complete clinical remission! Dr. Grace is caring, has a great attitude, is cutting-edge (he… just has tools other oncologists don't), and always very responsive whenever I had questions or concerns. I highly recommend Dr. Grace!!

Dr. Grace was extremely persuasive when he told us that he believed he could cure my daughter's stage IV breast cancer if she had chemo assays performed by a lab he highly recommends and then an intense course of chemo based on the assays. Against the advice of her medical team at NYU Langone Cancer Center, she decided to have the assays done and receive chemotherapy treatments from Dr. Grace. She had to pay several thousand dollars for the assays out of pocket since insurance doesn't cover them. Dr. Grace also advocates a one-time procedure called a regional chemo breast infusion, given either before or after a long course of regular intravenous chemo treatments. My daughter decided to start out with the procedure and made an appointment with a surgeon at Lenox Hill Hospital to whom Dr. Grace had taught the procedure. It involves sending chemo through an artery in the groin, up through the aorta and directly into the two arteries on either side of the breast. She had an… adverse reaction to this blast of chemicals into her breast by the next day -- a large painful inflammation on her chest, pain in her shoulder, numbness coming and going in her arm, and a loss of range of motion of the arm. We went in to see Dr. Grace just before he left on a two-week vacation and he thought it was an allergic reaction and suggested cold packs and pain killers. The symptoms got worse. My daughter went back to NYU where they did a blood test and found that her white cell count was dangerously low (400). They gave her a shot of Nulasta. They were worried that the chest inflammation might be an extravasation, where the chemo leaks into the surrounding tissue. She had also developed a new angry-looking hard red lump on her chest. We spoke to the doctor who was "covering" for Dr. Grace, but he didn't know anything about the procedure or its side effects. The surgeon was very concerned but didn't know what to do about the side effects either. He had only performed the procedure once before. We spent days seeing specialists, trying to find out how serious it might be. She was sent to a plastic surgeon who sent her to a neurologist who did an MRI and said she had scar tissue on her side, under her arm and shoulder and needed physical therapy or the impairment could be permanent. He said the hard, painful area of her chest might take years to go away. All her hair fell out over one weekend. Dr. Grace's staff said they were leaving messages for him but couldn't reach him. We didn't hear from him at all during the weeks he was away -- or when he returned. I finally called and made anappointment and we both went in. He said she should have had blood tests once a week. We pointed out that he had never mentioned that or made arrangements for them. My daughter told him she'd felt abandoned. He apologized profusely, he's really a charming, likable man, and said he will always, always return phone calls. My daughter asked if he would speak to an oncologist she sometimes consults with at NYU that she had an appointment with the next morning. He said he absolutely would and gave us his cell phone number. The next day when we saw her, the doctor said she had called and emailed Dr Grace four or five times but he hadn't gotten back to her. We haven't heard from him or seen him again. Dr. Grace's lack of crucial follow-up after such a radical procedure was shocking and devastating to my daughter. She had trusted him and put herself into his hands. We read all these glowing reviews and wonder how it can be the same man.I wrote about this experience in more detail on the Caring Bridge website.