My name is Janice I am 61 years old. I live in Harbor City, California.At first my weight drop down to 85lbs and I was diagnosed and treated for diabetes. I started having eye problems and went to several eye doctors before I was diagnosed with Graves disease a doctor in Santa Monica, referred me to the eye specialist at UCLA Westood the Jules Doris & Stein Eye Clinic. Then that DR. referrerd me to the Gonda Diabetes Endocrinology, Hypertention Center at UCLA. After taking many tests I was refered to Dr. Harari. Dr. Harari examined me and right away in the office she did a ultrasound, and then sent me to have a biopsy. After the results I was told I had a suspicious tumor and it needed to be removed. Dr. Harari was very kind considerate, caring, and comforting. I felt she was very professional showing concern and compassion explaing what to expect after during and after surgery. I really appreciated her making sure before surgery I had the right medication which I had a hard time finding. She did a great job on my surgery and my family was very satisfied with her taking care of me. Thank you DR.Harari.

I had a total thyroidectomy on Nov. 27, 2012 after dealing with a nodule that had doubled in size in two years. After several fine needle biopsies, it was determined that the nodule could be cancerous. In addition, other nodules, although benign, were found on the other side. Both my endocrinologist and Dr. Avital Harari, a confident, friendly, angel, left it up to me to decide whether I wanted a partial or total thyroidectomy. Since we would have needed to watch the remaining nodules carefully, and since I might have had to have those taken out at a later date, I opted to do the total at this time. Suffice it to say, my experience with Dr. Harari and the staff at Santa Monica-UCLA was exemplary. I did not have to stay over night and was, therefore, in the “short-stay” part of the hospital. Everyone could not have been more caring, from the parking attendant at 5:00 a.m. to the admissions staff to the pre-op nurse, the anesthesiology team, the OR nurse, the recovery nurses and everyone else. Post surgery, I did not have a sore throat, my voice was back to normal immediately, my scar is barely noticeable (Dr. Harari had stated that she was “anal” about trying not to leave a visible scar, and, believe me, partly, I suppose, because I had lines in my neck already there is virtually no scar) After a few days at home, I was ready to go shopping for holiday presents….got a bit tired…but was not debilitated. I took Vicodin for two days, Tylenol for two days, and nothing after that. If surgery can be a good experience, this was it!!! I thank the entire Endocrine Surgery department for making my whole experience the very best it could be.

My name is Brandie Johnson and I had the pleasure of meeting with Dr. Avital Harari.

From beginning to end was great experience with her. She was amazing! Before meeting with her I had been dealing with hyper and hypothyroid disease and also I have Graves disease. After 3 years of dealing with all the symptoms that come along with Graves disease, I considered surgery. From the first visit with Dr. Harari she was all smiles and educated me on if I chose surgery, what would most likely be the outcome. She would draw a diagram of what my thyroid looks like a what would be removed. Dr. Harari never rushed on our visits and always asked me if I had any questions she could answer. To be totally honest, if I had not met Dr. Harari I might not have followed through with surgery. She has a great energy when you meet her and she was highly recommended by my Endocronologist and my Internal Medicine doctor. Her Nurse Practioner, Jennifer was also great as well! She always returned my calls and accommodated my questions and concerns.

My fiance’ was nervous for me to have the surgery until he met Dr. Harari the day of surgery. She was so vibrant and positive. When she walked out the room he said “I feel confident after talking to her”.

Post surgery has been great! A few days after surgery I was up a moving around the house and feeling like the “old me” again.I did not think I would be this mobile so soon. It has been almost 3 weeks and I havent had any issues. My scar looks great and I am looking forward to it getting better in the future.

On the last visit I recently had with Dr. Harari to follow up post surgery. I asked her if this was my last time seeing her she said “yes”. I told her I could always have a visit with her because of her energy and knowledge. She is a amazing doctor. I cant thank her enough…

Sincerely,

Very Happy Patient (Brandie Johnson)

Dr. Harari performed a full thyroidectomy on me in April and I can’t even see the scar. She did a wonderful job. You couldn’t be in better hands with her. She used glue to close the cut and it worked great.

I’m a 34 year old male and recently diagnosed with Papillary Cancer.
I was so happy with my life busy with my healthy lifestyle, running marathons, and century bike rides, all of a sudden whole world came down upon me. During My Endo suggested me to find a good surgeon and finally with my office colleague’s recommendations I came to know about the endocrine surgery department of UCLA. During my first call I was told I can have an appointment with Dr. Avital Harari after a week on June 2012. On my first visit I was pleased with the confidence and assurance given to me by Dr. Harari. Knowledge makes a person confident no doubt about it. She looked at my old reports and did an ultrasound on my thyroid to see if the lump has spread to other lymph nodes or not during the same visit. She told me not to worry & that as I’m quite young so the prognosis of this type of cancer is better upto 97%. She also mentioned that there can be some complication risks of 1-3% during my thyroidectomy which really scared me, (I know all surgery has some complications), as all ready I got something to worry about and with the added complications I’ll be doomed.
I got surgery date after 2 month after my visit. Before my surgery date hospital staff called me to get the pre operation tests done. On surgery day everyone visited me including Anesthesiologist to let me know what will be the procedure & how long will I be out.
And with all my happiness and thanking words my surgery went perfectly well without any complications. I’ll be always thankful to Dr. Harari for saving my life and her expertise in handling the difficult surgery with ease and perfection. My experience with UCLA is very good and I must say for those first timers, you are in safe experienced hands and need not worry ( because I was worried a lot for the first surgery). Hopefully one day a magic bullet will be invented to kill the cancer.

I was diagnosed with papillary carcinoma on May 2012. The moment I learned I have cancer my world just turned upside down.
Being a 42 years old single mother of teenage twins and regional director of a multinational corporation, my biggest fears were that I wasn’t going to be able to help my kids with college and neither to keep my professional responsibilities.
I started my search for the medical team that would work with me on this odyssey when after several interviews with different surgeons, I met Dr. Harari.
She made feel very comfortable and almost immediately I knew she was going to be my surgeon.
I had some questions and concerns a couple of days after my visit so I contacted her via email, she answered me back very quickly, making me feel that this situation was as important to her that it was for me.
We scheduled the surgery for a little over a month after my first visit.
The surgery went just great. My cancer was very small and no need of radiation. My recovery was just unbelievable, the next day I felt good and I was able to take care of myself.
The 3rd day after my surgery I did my first workout session and felt very good.
Today, 2 months after the surgery I feel good and my scar is looking good too.
I thank you very much Dr. Harari and her team, for making this odyssey the best possible under the circumstances.

I’m a 38 year old male who was recently diagnosed with sporadic medullary thyroid cancer. By the time I got to doctor Harari I had already had one surgery to remove my thyroid. After that surgery, my cancer was diagnosed as Medullary. After a second biopsy of a lymph node in my neck came back positive, I was referred to UCLA and Dr. Harari. Working with her has been great. She is very knowledgeable and has a better grasp of MTC than my previous doctors. And she LISTENS! I have a pretty rare cancer, and it requires a lot of research on my part. When I come in with questions or comments about information I’ve gathered, she takes me seriously, and many times can further explain what I’ve read. She also consulted with a colleague in San Francisco who had more experience than she did with this disease. Bottom line, she’s been very thorough.

She sent me through a boatload of scans and tests to determine how far this thing has spread, and they came back pretty clean except for my neck. She performed a modified neck dissection and removed 30 lymph nodes…5 of which came back positive for MTC.

I have had no complications after the surgery. I think that says a lot about Dr. Harari’s skills as surgeon, ’cause from what I understand, it’s a pretty difficult procedure.

I’m still waiting to see how far my calcitonin has dropped…before surgery it was 1500, so we’ll see.

I know it’s a long journey with MTC, and it’s never really cured, so I’m hoping it just grows very slowly and leaves me alone for a very long time.

I was treated by the amazing Dr. Harari and her team. I needed microsurgery and alcohol ablation to kill 3 malignant lymph nodes. In treating me, Dr. Harari and her team set up, tracked and followed me through five appointments with other doctors (to treat an infection, confirm that a previous surgery hadn’t injured nerves in my neck such that the new surgery might not make it hard for me to breathe or eat). The surgery went great, the healing was excellent, the follow up perfect, the pain control amazing.

Dr. Harari is a rock star and UCLA must have the best thyroid surgeons in the nations. We are very lucky to live near by . . .

Nancy

Thank you to Dr. Avital Harari!

Dr. Harari,

I am usually a good patient, and an “easy” patient, doing whatever is asked of me, and following through with whatever is recommended for me. As you know, I lost my mom to cancer just over two years ago. I have been caring for my dad for the last two years. Last December I was diagnosed with lung cancer and had most of my right lung removed in January. It was then recommended that I see you for a consultation regarding a thyroid nodule. When you recommended surgery, it just became too much for me, I’m afraid I unintentionally created some “drama”, and I apologize for that! Having said that, you never gave up on me, and when I contacted you to let you know that I had decided to proceed with the surgery, you were right there for me!

I want to thank you for your knowledge, expertise, skill, kindness, patience, understanding, and support! I also want to thank you for being so cautious and thorough, for taking such good care of me, and for doing such a good job during my surgery!

I have been trying to figure out how I thank someone for saving my life, and I have concluded that I will never truly be able to thank you! For now, I figure this blog is a start…

Please know that I am eternally grateful and thankful, and I am more appreciative than you will ever know!

Thank you so much for all that you do, and for just being you!!

I am a 64 year old female who recently had a complete thyroidectomy on Nov. 10, 2015 which was performed by Dr. Harari. My journey began four years ago when an ultrasound of my thyroids showed a small nodule on the right thyroid. A referral was made by my primary doctor to an endocrine specialist in USC who reviewed the ultrasound report and concluded that the nodule was quite small and was not of any significance. I was put on Levothyroxine medication for a period of six months as my thyroid tests were somewhat off. No further treatment or tests were performed after the first ultrasound four years ago. Sometime in August 2015, I was in my primary doctor’s office for routine follow up visit to discuss results of my usual lab tests for high cholesterol, high BP, diabetes, etc. While in the doctor’s office, it suddenly dawned on me just of out the blue, to ask my doctor about my ultrasound of four years ago. I told my doctor that I was wondering what had happened to the small nodule on my right thyroid, whether it was still there or has disappeared. My doctor decided to find out and ordered an ultrasound. The ultrasound came back and showed that the nodule found four years ago got bigger in size, and there were two new nodules on the right and two on the left. All in all, there were 5 nodules. The radiologist recommended a follow up ultrasound in six months. My primary doctor then filed away the report in my folder. So, I went home and thought about that report. I felt very uncomfortable and I felt that something wasn’t right. After a couple of weeks, I decided to go back to my primary doctor and told him how I felt and that I wanted to see an endocrinologist for a second opinion. I then made an appointment with Dr. David Ahn, a UCLA doctor in Santa Clarita Valley where I live. I showed him the report and he immediately ordered a biopsy of the biggest nodule on the right thyroid. A biopsy was done In October 2015 and it showed that the nodule was cancerous. I was pretty upset by the results but Dr. Ahn was very emphathetic and told me that he will refer me to an endocrine surgeon in UCLA Westwood. He assured me that these doctors are among the finest in the world and I would be in very good hands. I was made an appointment to see Dr. Harari in mid October 2015. I immediately liked Dr. Harari. I liked her demeanor and she gave me the impression that she knew exactly what she was going to do with my case, her action plan, her pro active stance and her decision to remove both thyroids which was exactly what I wanted to hear. I also liked the fact that she performed her own ultrasound and didn’t only rely on the ultrasound report done previously. The surgery was then scheduled for Nov. 10, 2015. Before my appointment with Dr. Harari, I was quite nervous not knowing my fate and the outcome of the surgery and of course, going under the knife would make anyone afraid and nervous for that matter. When I left Dr. Harari’s office, I felt reassured and calm that I was going to be in good hands and that Dr. Harari was a good surgeon. The surgery was performed on Nov. 10, 2015. The check in went very smoothly, the preparation for the surgery was done, the anesthesiologist talked to me and so did the nurses of Dr. Harari’s surgical theme. They were all very professional and reassuring that I was in very good hands as they said that Dr. Harari was very detailed and really required perfection from her surgical team.:-) Lastly, Dr. Harari came and spoke to me before the surgery and asked how I was doing and everything. I’m thinking to myself, I’ll be fine with this surgery. The surgery was performed and the only hardship I had was in the recovery room. I don’t do well at all post surgery. I felt so ill, and my body hurt all over. But, I do react this way even with my previous surgeries. I was taken to my room and was quite restless during the night but the nurses were so good, so kind and attentive to my needs when I called them. Both the daytime and night time nurses were awesome! The following morning, the surgical team came and asked how I was doing. I was discharged from the hospital in that afternoon. I went home and recuperated. Eleven days later, I saw Dr. Harari for a follow up visit. She discussed the results of the pathology report and it was found that both thyroids had cancerous nodules. So, Dr. Harari’s decision to remove both thyroids was spot on. I was happy that she made that decision early on. She was right. Otherwise, if she removed only the right thyroids based on the biopsy report, then I would have gone in for another surgery to remove the left thyroid. I was thankful that Dr. Harari had that insight and expertise to come to a decision to remove both thyroids. I am also very thankful to Dr. Harari, the surgical team and the entire UCLA staff or doctors and nurses for giving me the best possible care ever. Everything was first class and UCLA Santa Monica is a world class hospital. I would also like commend Dr. David Ahn, my UCLA endocrinologist who continues to follow up on my medical care post surgery. Right now, I am fully recovered and back to my normal activities. Thank you so much Dr. Harari and the UCLA team!! I am forever grateful..