Executive Committee

Dr. Hallmeyer was born and raised in East Berlin, Germany.  Due to limited opportunities, a few weeks after her eighteenth birthday, she risked her life to escape to West Germany, where she completed her high school education in the West German system. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, she returned to her family in Berlin and was accepted to the medical faculty of the Humboldt University of Berlin.

During her medical studies, she visited the United States for several clinical clerkships and was impressed with the high level of academic education as well as the administration of medical care. These rotations laid the foundation for her desire to pursue a career in America.

Dr. Hallmeyer completed her residency in Internal Medicine at Pinnacle Health Hospitals, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and completed her fellowship in hematology and oncology in Pennsylvania, and came to Chicago in 2002 to train at the University of Illinois at Chicago campus as a fellow in hematology/oncology at the University of Illinois in Chicago.

She joined Oncology Specialists, a private practice, in 2005 and is proud to be a member of a team of physicians and nurses who offer the highest quality of patient care. The atmosphere in the practice is very team oriented; everybody is focused on one common goal: provision of state-of-the-art, compassionate and complete care for patients and their family members.  Dr. Hallmeyer has specialized in the care of patients with breast cancer and melanoma. She has an avid interest in immuno-oncology, as well as a deep interest in cancer survivorship. In 2017, Oncology Specialists joined the Advocate Health Care system, the largest integrated healthcare system in Illinois, and was re-named the Advocate Medical Group.

Most recently, Dr. Hallmeyer served on the American Society of Clinical Oncology expert panels for management of immunotherapy-related toxicities and for sexual dysfunction in cancer survivors.

In 2017, Oncology Specialists joined the Advocate Health Care system, the largest integrated healthcare system in Illinois, and was re-named the Advocate Medical Group.

Dr. Hallmeyer adds, “I feel that I have the privilege of treating a very special group of patients, and I am honored to be able to provide help and support at a very difficult juncture in a patient’s life. By working here at Advocate Medical Group, I feel that my childhood dream from East Germany has come true.”

Dr. Faries is a surgical oncologist and the co-director of the Melanoma Program and head of Surgical Oncology at The Angeles Clinic and Research Institute in Los Angeles. He also is the surgical director for Experimental Therapeutics at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. He received his undergraduate education at Haverford College and completed medical school at Cornell. He completed his residency in general surgery at the University of Pennsylvania and a surgical oncology fellowship at the John Wayne Cancer Institute.

Dr. Faries is principal investigator (PI) for the second Multicenter Selective Lymphadenectomy Trial, an international trial including more than 4,000 subjects. He serves on the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) Melanoma Staging Committee and the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO)/Society of Surgical Oncology (SSO) Melanoma Guidelines panel and is a member of the editorial board of the Annals of Surgical Oncology. His research focuses on surgical treatment of melanoma and immunotherapy.