MUSC Hollings Cancer Center

This Thanksgiving, we’re grateful for our amazing care teams, patients, faculty, students and community members committed to health, wellbeing and compassion. To those who celebrate, we wish you a safe, healthy and peaceful Thanksgiving.

“Essentially, if you just use the Golgi apparatus as a simple marker, if T-cells have a lot of Golgi versus less, the ones that have more Golgi are much more robust at killing tumor cells and controlling tumors,” says MD/PhD student Nate Oberholtzer, first author on a new study in Science Advances with Mehrotra Shikhar.?

We recently held our annual Talbot Reception to bring awareness about pancreatic cancer and hear the latest research and treatments at Hollings Cancer Center. Judge Frank Talbot was a pancreatic cancer patient who passed away in 2010. He was on a clinical trial at Hollings that extended his life. His wife and children are incredibly grateful for the care he received and made a gift towards a pancreatic cancer clinical trial and created a pancreatic cancer research endowment in his memory. Thank you, Talbot family!

“Caregivers often hide their concerns from the loved one they're caring for because they want to shield them from additional worry, so it’s just another way that they're isolated,” says Katherine Sterba, Ph.D. For National Family Caregivers Month, she offered some suggestions for self-care for people caring for a loved one with cancer.?

One of the neat things about working at MUSC is that the institution sponsors pilot grants for employee ideas to improve education, research or the patient experience. Dr. Debbie Henninger-Borckardt, a research coordinator with the Brain Stimulation Lab, saw an opportunity to improve the waiting room experience on the 3rd floor of Hollings. "Research indicates that fears and negative mood are influenced by the impact of sitting in the waiting room and witnessing varying stages of disease progression and/or distress. The emotional cost of a possible or actual cancer diagnosis is massive and the emotional toll is exacerbated by the waiting room experience," she wrote in her Employee Initiatives Grant application. With those thoughts in mind, Dr. Henninger-Borckardt outfitted the waiting room with art supplies, activities and a zen sand garden. We're sure that patients will be very appreciative! Thank you!

We had so much fun being part of the recent Lung Force 5k, hosted by the South Carolina American Lung Association at Folly beach. The Lung Force Run/Walk provides critical funds for lifesaving research, early detection initiatives, and awareness outreach to vulnerable communities. Hollings Heroes had a team of more than 30 at this year's event. Our Hollings team raised over $5,000 and a handful of our nurses even placed in the race!

'Tis the season for kindness – and we want to thank the South Carolina Academy of Physician Assistants (SCAPA) for theirs! They recently collected snacks at their annual conference and donated them for patients in our Robert K. Stuart, M.D. Blood and Marrow Transplant Center. We know our patients will be so grateful for the pick me up! Thank you SCAPA!

Interested in a career in science research? Applications for the MUSC Hollings Cancer Center Graduate Fellowship are now open. Learn more here:?https://lnkd.in/dx_yJ5zC

Lung cancer survivor?Cynthia Waddy has a simple but important message for people who are afraid of getting bad news from their doctors: "Follow through." Hiding from a possible diagnosis won't make it go away. “You cannot ignore things like that. If you want to live, even if it's just a couple of weeks, days, months more, it's best to keep up with your medical history, with your body and your doctors.”

We recently received a generous donation of 26 Chemo Care Kits for our women chemo patients currently undergoing treatment. These kits were sponsored by our local Mary Kay Cosmetics consultants, Sara Cox and Shelley Fox in conjunction with donations from local community members. The kits include Energizing Foot and Leg lotion, Satin Lips Lip Balm and Satin Hands Fragrance Free Had Cream. These kits will be distributed in at both HEC Midtown and Hollings downtown this week and next. Thank you so much, Mary Kay!