Dr. Christine Horner, MD FACS
Christine Horner, MD is a nationally known surgeon, author, and professional speaker residing in Taos, NM. She holds two board certifications: the National Board of Surgery, and the National Board of Plastic Surgery. Dr. Horner was recognized as a leader in her field shortly after starting her plastic and reconstructive surgery practice because she successfully ran a national campaign to pass laws requiring insurance companies to pay for breast reconstruction following mastectomy. Her five year crusade — the Breast Reconstruction Advocacy Project or BRA Project — led to the passage of laws in thirty-five states and a federal law. The federal bill was signed into law by President Clinton on October 21, 1998. The law was unprecedented because it was the first law Congress had ever passed requiring insurance companies to pay for a specific surgical procedure. Her campaign involved several meetings with President Clinton and Hillary Clinton, Senator’s Ted Kennedy and Alfonse D’Amato, and Representatives Anna Eshoo and Sue Kelly.
Biography
Dr. Horner received a tremendous amount of national media coverage for the campaign and was featured in dozens of national magazines including Glamour, Ms. Magazine, Elle, Allure, and Women’s Health Weekly, and newspapers including the New York Daily News, USA Today, the Detroit Free Press, the Chicago Sun Times, the Cincinnati Enquire, the Baltimore Sun and a front page feature article in the Kentucky Post. Dr. Horner has been interviewed for many television news programs including the NBC Nightly News with Tom Brokaw. In February 1999 Glamour magazine honored her as their “WOW–Woman of the Month.” In 2000 Oprah recognized her as part of her “Angel Network” on her television program.
For over a decade, Dr. Horner worked with the American Cancer Society. She was appointed to The American Cancer Society’s Breast Cancer Detection Task Force for the state of Kentucky from 1993-97, served as the ACS Spokesperson for the state of Kentucky on Breast Cancer issues from 1992- 1997, chaired the “Relay for Life” event in 1993 and 1994, served on the Board of Directors of the ACS Kentucky Division and was Vice President of the Kentucky Division in 1993-94. She worked with the National ACS office in their Medical Content Oversight Work Group for “tlc” magazine in 1997 and contributed articles to Coping Magazine. In 1994, the ACS honored Dr. Horner by awarding her the Kentucky Division Lifesaver Award.
Dr. Horner was appointed to the Kentucky Commission on Women in 1999. She founded and served as President of the non-profit organization that ran the Breast Reconstruction Advocacy Project called the Women’s Health Advocacy Projects and was the founder, CEO and President of the Women’s Physicians Assurance Company from 1996-98.
Dr. Horner has also been recognized for her outstanding surgical abilities. In 2001 she was named by her peers as one of “Cincinnati Top Doctors. “
Mission & Passion
In the early 1990s, Dr. Horner became alarmed over the increasing number of very young women she saw in her practice diagnosed with breast cancer. When her own mother was diagnosed and then died from breast cancer, Dr. Horner began an intensive search of the medical literature to find what — if anything — could help prevent breast cancer. What she found was a tremendous amount of little-known research proving that woman can significantly reduce their risk of breast cancer and of most other chronic diseases through natural means: eating the right foods, exercising, sleeping during the ideal hours, and using techniques of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (herbs, supplements, meditation, detoxification and purification techniques etc.). From that moment Dr. Horner incorporated all of these techniques into her own life and then became passionate about teaching others how to stay healthy naturally.
In effort to get this information out to as many people as possible, in 1999 Dr. Horner worked to create the first ever syndicated television news segment exclusively focused on Complementary and Alternative Medicine and natural approaches to staying healthy. It aired on WCPO-TV and then WLW-TV in Cincinnati. Dr. Horner was the host and medical editor of the segment. She wrote over 144 Internet articles for the WLW- TV web site. Each article gave more in-depth information about the topics featured on the bi-weekly television news segment. In 2001, the segment was syndicated on the WISDOM Television Network, reaching 5.5 million households.
In June 2002, Dr. Horner left her plastic surgery practice so that she could dedicate herself full time to writing and teaching about her passion: prevention-oriented medicine and how to become and stay healthy naturally.
Dr. Horner is a popular and charismatic speaker. For several years, her engaging presentations on natural health topics have appealed to audiences nationwide. In 2005, she gave dozens of presentations including “Natural Approaches to Breast Cancer Prevention” at the annual meeting for the American Holistic Medical Association in Philadelphia, the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians in Phoenix, the Cancer Control Conference in Los Angeles, and gave a keynote address at the CAM conference in LA in October. In 2006, she spoke at the 92nd Street Y in New York City, the Harvard University sponsored course in Boston “Publishing Books, Memoirs and other Creative Nonfiction” and was the keynote at the Women’s Wellness Day sponsored by the Susan Samueli Center for Integrative Medicine, University of California Irvine, .
She is a member of many national organizations, including The Society for Plastic Surgeons, American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, Association of Women Surgeon’s, American College of surgeons, and the American Holistic Medical Society.
In 1997, Dr. Horner was honored by receiving the YWCA Career Women of Achievement Award.
