There’s an unconventional feeling to the waiting room at the new Margaret W. Niedland Breast Center in Jupiter. The air is crisp. The room smells like recently brewed coffee. And the contemporary décor includes an arrangement of bubble chandeliers, mahogany and pewter furniture, and an eclectic collection of paintings. The center, which could easily be associated with fear and worry, offers a soothing environment that alludes more to a spa than to a medical center.
But the most calming element in this 26,000-square-foot building is not the décor or the smell. Rather, it’s a person.
Meet Dr. Lynda Frye, the diagnostic radiologist and medical director of breast imaging at Jupiter Medical Center. The 50-year-old has blond bangs that gingerly frame her fair skin, clear blue eyes and a resplendent smile. She’s jovial, kind and comforting.
“I love what I do and I feel so blessed, so it’s important for me to make my patients feel cared for,” Frye says.
Frye, who accepted a position with Jupiter Medical Center in 2014, first turned to radiology in 1995. After completing her medical internship at Loma Linda University Medical Center in 1993, she practiced clinical medicine for two years. But once she became a mother of two, Frye chose to practice an area of medicine where the hours allowed for both career and motherhood.
“I never, honestly, thought I’d go into radiology because it seemed like they all sit in dark rooms,” she says, laughing.
But Frye found a career that was hands-on, patient-oriented and fulfilling. She’s since compiled a resume that is as impressive as she is. In 2000, she completed a fellowship at the University of California in Breast Imaging. She later worked at Hoag Hospital Newport Beach, and eventually even opened her own center, Pacific Breast Care Center in 2008.
“What I really enjoy [about radiology] is trying to figure things out, trying to put the pieces of a puzzle together,” she says.
Frye has always been inquisitive. Even as a child growing up in Silver Spring, Maryland, she would take her dog into the nearby woods, collect plants and study them. To this day, her fondness for the sciences has never left her.
In fact, one of the reasons Frye accepted her position with Jupiter Medical Center was due to the advanced medicine and technology the center possessed, such as the 3-D mammography.
“I wouldn’t have gone to a center where I had to read 2-D [mammography scans], it makes that much of a difference,” she says. “We’re finding so many cancers that would have gone undetected for a little while longer.”
The breast center offers an array of impressive services and cutting-edge technology including an innovative caring suite that gives patients preparing for an MRI the chance to choose their own music, images and lighting; 3-D mammography with a low radiation dose; and positron emission tomography scans that provide a more accurate diagnosis and better image quality. But it’s the center’s fearless leader that sets the treatment apart.
Frye encourages everyone to be screened yearly for breast cancer. She says that early detection and prevention are vital to her patients’ care.
“It’s such a scary time for somebody, so to be able to offer some support even just through my guidance and diagnosing … it’s just special for me,” she says.
After all, that’s Frye: She takes the fear out of an otherwise scary process.
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