MD Local: Melanie Friedlander, MD

Written by Diane Krieger | Photograpbhed by Siri Berting

Most people know Melanie Friedlander, MD, as a skilled Torrance Memorial surgeon. But Google her, and you’ll find a whole other side in @girlsurgeon—Friedlander’s handle in the Steelers superfan universe.

This co-director of the Hunt Cancer Center’s breast surgery program is also an authority on Pittsburgh’s iconic NFL team. On game days, you can find Dr. Friedlander live-tweeting her expert analysis. Her blog posts and mini podcasts on the popular Steelers Depot website reach millions of fans worldwide.

Another of her quirks few people appreciate: Dr. Friedlander is a serious wine collector, with around 1,500 bottles in her cellar.

And she’s a gourmet cook who throws elaborate dinner parties. Sometimes she painstakingly recreates memorable meals from top restaurants. Other times she concocts eight-course wine pairings in collaboration with a foodie friend. Planning these theme-driven feasts “is almost as much fun as the dinner party itself,” Dr. Friedlander says.

Dr. Friedlander’s exotic hobbies are rooted in an idyllic childhood. Her sophisticated palate comes from having “awesome parents” who often included her and her older sister, Claudia, in restaurant adventures.

The family lived in Mendham Township, New Jersey, a quaint colonial town 30 miles west of the Big Apple. Going strictly by geography, they should have rooted for the Jets or the Giants. But both New York football franchises haughtily rejected a tristate identity—and “as a little kid in New Jersey, that hurt my feelings,” she recalls. So she gave her heart to the mighty Steelers, champions of four Super Bowls in the 1970s.

Knowing from an early age she would be a surgeon, she gave herself permission to pursue many non-science interests. At Middlebury College, she completed a literature minor alongside her stiff pre-med requirements. She sang with an a cappella group and acted in stage productions, DJ’d with the student radio station and played on the women’s rugby team.

She took up cycling, running, swimming and golf after moving to Los Angeles for a fellowship in minimally invasive surgery at USC. It was a cycling trip to Napa Valley that first sparked her interest in wine. Eventually she bought a second home there. When she isn’t on call at the hospital, she spends weekends riding the switchbacks of Palos Verdes or treasure-hunting in Napa wineries.

Dr. Friedlander’s passions for wine, cooking and football converge once a year in a blowout Super Bowl party she throws for up to 100 guests. For the rest of the season, she watches Steelers games alone. “I can be a little bit intense,” she admits. “I tweet the entire time. I yell at the TV screen. My non-football friends say I’m scary.”

Her sports commentary reached a new level in 2012 after Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger sustained an unusual game-day injury. He dislocated a rib, which could have resulted in life-threatening damage to his aorta. Consulting the orthopedic literature, Dr. Friedlander penned an information-packed blog post that went viral. The Steelers Depot website recruited her as its sports injury expert, and she’s been blogging and podcasting there ever since.

But breast surgery remains Dr. Friedlander’s top priority. “That’s the role that means the most to me,” she says of her work at the Hunt Cancer Center.

Only rarely do her medical practice and her football world collide—and when they do, Dr. Friedlander is delighted. Recently, a patient presented her with a pair of squeezy Steelers keychain fobs. “You Googled me!” Dr. Friedlander declared, beaming with pleasure. “Yes,” the patient replied with a big smile.