Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center Helps Surviors Return To Normal Lives

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Have you ever heard of the Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center?

This hospital and care center, founded in 1884, has a long and outstanding history filled with internationally recognized work, such as providing patient care, conducting innovative research, and hosting outstanding educational programs. Their work is enhanced and continues today thanks to support and public donations. Jeffrey Tognetti knows this; he donates to the center on a regular basis.

One only has to look at the center’s newsletters, which help connect cancer survivors, to see the good work this hospital has done thanks to the donations it has received. Their most current newsletter, for example, highlights the story of a four-year cancer survivor who, after recovering from his stage III cancer, went on to help Team USA take the Gold Medal at the World Championships of Ultimate Frisbee in Osaka, Japan.

This survivor, Kurt Gibson, traveled from Dallas, TX., to New York, specifically because of the center’s fantastic reputation. The center, which is primarily located in New York City and has several branch offices open in other parts of New York state, focuses on two key areas when fulfilling its mission:

• Upholding ongoing close collaboration between its physicians and scientists. This communication, unique among select centers in the world, allows the Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center to provide patients with the best care available while simultaneously researching better strategies that will help us prevent, control, and ultimately cure cancer in the future.
• The center’s education programs allow it to train future physicians and scientists, which greatly influences the minds of the people who are stepping into the field and will ultimately impact the future of cancer treatments and research.

The strength of the Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center comes from its ability and willingness to address the multiple sides of cancer treatment and research. Its facilities and staff utilize the best treatments available while also providing the necessary therapy and support for those who are fighting cancer or who are survivors; at the same time, its seminars and community outreach programs continue its work outside of its center by sharing its valuable knowledge with other professionals and the general public alike.

This balance between treatment – both of the patient’s physical and mental health – and communication is crucial in the battle against cancer. Ultimately, thanks to the center’s approach and treatment, Gibson recovered and rejoined his Frisbee team, Doublewide, in 2009; a few years later he was invited by the coach of Team USA to play with the team in Osaka, Japan, where his team won the Gold Medal.

“There is nothing more meaningful than to put on a USA jersey and represent your country at the highest level of a sport,” Gibson says in his interview in the newsletter. “The way it happened was a blessing from God after all I had been through.”

It’s thanks to donations from people like Tognetti that the Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center can continue its outstanding and internationally recognized work and provide patient care, innovative research, and outstanding educational programs.