Vernon Cancer Center Volume 1 Fall 2014
Newsletter
The Vernon Cancer Center Celebrates Five Years! This year the Vernon Cancer Center turns five! It seems like just yesterday when Newton-Wellesley Hospital, New England Hematology Oncology and Massachusetts General Hospital collaborated to develop a comprehensive cancer center. To celebrate, we have started this newsletter. We hope to use it as a means to keep our referring physicians informed about new treatments, protocols and up-to-date practice guidelines. Medical oncology at Newton-Wellesley arrived in the 70s under Lot Page, MD, Chief of Medicine. His vision was to develop “geographical full-time specialists” to insure that there was a uniform standard of care across all medical specialties. At that time Tim O’Connor, MD, began practicing at NWH, and I followed shortly thereafter in 1982. This led to what had always been a natural marriage of combining hematology and medical oncology under one roof. Since that time, hematology and medical oncology have grown significantly. Despite this growth, we found ourselves in need of additional components to provide patients with the complete care that could only be available in a comprehensive center. Our vision began by combining hematology/oncology with radiation oncology and thus the collaboration between Newton-Wellesley, New England Hematology Oncology and Mass General was structured. The NWH Charitable Foundation completed a most successful campaign to build the Vernon Cancer Center. The community and beyond supported this effort to name the Center after one of our stellar physicians, James Vernon, MD, and his wife Joan, an outstanding nurse. Once this came to fruition, we turned our attention towards insuring that all patients would receive state-of-the-art, multidisciplinary care in a nurturing setting close to home. It is remarkable to me that over these five short years we have essentially realized that dream and are in a position to plan for the future. Our multidisciplinary, patient-centered care has evolved due to the great complexity in treating oncology patients and has resulted in many successes. We now have multidisciplinary conferences for breast, thoracic, GU, head and neck, gynecological oncology, malignant hematology and GI malignancies. This has grown significantly since we initially started with a weekly tumor board to review cases. Over the past year, well
Radiology & Interventional Radiology
Initial Diagnosis
Radiation Oncology MGH Medical Oncology NEHOA
Surgical Oncology
Pathology
Patient
Integrative Support Services
over 1,000 cases have been presented resulting in state-of-the-art care at all levels. These conferences are attended by all disciplines that may be involved in a patient’s care. Our multidisciplinary team, consisting of medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, surgeons, radiologists, pathologists and members of Integrative Support Services, discuss every aspect of a patient’s case. This includes evaluation of molecular targets that might be amenable to specialized targeted therapy, psycho-social issues and genetic risk evaluations resulting in a comprehensive treatment plan. To accomplish this goal, there is a high degree of expertise required in all the disciplines. For that reason our medical oncologists all have specific areas of clinical expertise. Advances in cancer medicine are moving forward on a daily basis. Although we have been successful in prolonging patients’ survival with Stage IV disease, we continue to strive to increase our cure rates. Therefore, we will continue to reach out for new clinical trials as well as expand our medical oncology staff. We are also working to create new services such as a psychooncology, oncocardiology and survivorship programs to deal with many of the special challenges our patients face. I hope you enjoy reading about many of the advances in cancer care as well as learning about programs offered at the VCC. We look forward to providing you with more information in our upcoming newsletters. Jeffrey S. Wisch, MD Chief, Division Hematology/Medical Oncology Clinical Director, Vernon Cancer Center