CAR, I’m sorry that you’re having to go through this now. But I’m glad to see that you are taking the time to seek out information on the best available care.
City of Hope is an excellent choice, but your point about the distance is well-taken. At times, surgery is the first and last treatment for cancer, but often additional treatment is necessary, sometimes over a period of weeks or months. You don’t want to be making 150 or 200-mile round trips on a daily basis.
As I’ve opined before on this board, you only get one FIRST chance at a cancer occurrence. I worked in this field for many years and firmly believe that there is a world of difference between hospitals where cancer diagnosis and treatment is concerned. My strong recommendation is that you go to a National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center:
” A comprehensive cancer center has demonstrated reasonable depth and breadth of research activities in each of three major areas: laboratory, clinical, and population-based research, with substantial transdisciplinary research that bridges these scientific areas. An NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center must also demonstrate professional and public education and dissemination of clinical and public health advances into the community it serves.” http://cancercenters.cancer.gov/index.html
There are roughly 40 of these comprehensive centers nationwide, and California is fortunate to have six of them. I believe the closest to you is Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego (http://cancer.ucsd.edu/). There are several advantages to going an NCI CCC. The practitioners tend to be not only highly trained but also superspecialized. This is very important since cancer is not one disease but a hundred different diseases. You want a surgeon who is very well-versed in oncologic surgery, preferably a particular type of cancer. In addition, they typically have teams of practitioners that are experienced in treating all of the various aspects of cancer, should that become necessary: pathologists, radiation oncologists, hematologists, interventional radiologists and others who work seamlessly on a multidisciplinary approach that is often required in cancer. The staff have access to the latest in the oncologic research being performed at their institution (and others), and many of these practitioners are involved in basic or transitional research of their own.
Keep in mind that many hospitals and medical centers are starting to open up satellite facilities in locations that are far-removed from their principal locations. It might be worthwhile to see if City of Hope has such a program in your neck of the woods. You might have to go to Duarte initially, but follow-up can be done in a closer facility, if one exists.
I’m sending you a PM also with some additional info on medical and surgical oncologists.
