A Chicago, Ill., native, Dr. Behar knew at age six
he wanted to be a doctor, although no one in his family
had a medical background. In fact, his father, a Cuban
businessman who fled Castro’s regime to start
over, worked as many as four jobs to establish a home
for his family of five.
When he won the Chicago City Science Fair his freshman
year in high school, Dr. Behar attracted the attention
of several physicians on the faculty of the University
of Chicago School of Medicine. Through one’s
assistance, he made early application to the university,
and was admitted at age 16. He then bypassed an additional
year of college by passing early entrance exams. He
earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with honors at age
19, and became the youngest medical student in his
class at the University of Chicago.
After a one-year internship at Northwestern University
Medical Center in Chicago, Dr. Behar was accepted
to the Radiation Oncology residency program at Stanford
University in Palo Alto, Calif. In addition to being
noted for its overall academic and clinical excellence,
Stanford is the place where the linear accelerator
-- a major technological advance in radiation therapy
-- was originally developed. Studying under the tutelage
of faculty who were radiation oncology pioneers, Dr.
Behar was named chief resident of the Department of
Radiation Oncology and the recipient of The American
Cancer Society Fellowship in Clinical Oncology (1990-1991).
From that auspicious academic training, Dr. Behar
joined Radiology Associates of Hollywood, Inc., a
large Florida physician group, and became assistant
vice president for Brachytherapy. As part of that
association, he was director of Brachytherapy at Memorial
Hospital in Hollywood, Florida, and on the clinical
faculty in radiation oncology at the University of
Miami.
In 1993, Dr. Behar moved to Houston to become medical
director of the new Spring Branch Radiation Oncology
Center at Spring Branch Medical Center in Houston,
TX. He subsequently created the Western Radiation
Oncology Associates. Fluent in English and Spanish,
Dr. Behar is an international lecturer and published
author.
