The word “cancer” is frightening, a word which denotes an upcoming battle for your life. At the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s Cancer Institute, our doctors, our staff and even our valets are ready to help you through this journey. Here, you will find a University Cancer Care team which uses some of the latest diagnostic and treatment practices to help you. More important than equipment and technique, your team will care for you and about you.
Choosing your care
As you start this journey, the choices you must make will seem overwhelming. Finding out all you can about your cancer can help. We have provided basic information on many cancers to help you learn more about this disease, treatment options and treatment opportunities we can offer. You’ll also find links to reputable national Web sites for more information. Your first step should be to find a doctor and treatment facility. Here you can find information which will help you get started.
University Cancer Care
University Cancer Care includes teams of doctors, nurses and other specialists who treat patients with cancer, do research on cancer and teach the state’s next generation of medical caregivers. As you go through the diagnostic and treatment process, your care team will work to make it as easy as possible. Most services, from imagining to treatment, are under the same roof and schedulers work with you and your doctors to arrange a reasonable plan for all your appointments.
Our doctors have years of experience in treating the simplest and most complex cancers in adults and children. In fact, they see more complex cases than other cancer centers in the state. A team of doctors and specialists will discuss your case, and offer their best recommendations for your treatment. Officially called a multidisciplinary team, this is simply a group of people using the diverse skills they have mastered to make you well. We have the latest technology and treatments you would expect at an academic medical center, but our doctors and specialists never lose sight of the most important part of care – you.
Multidisciplinary teams
You will frequently hear these words, “multidisciplinary team.” Your team may include surgeons, radiation and medical oncologists, radiologists, pathologists, imaging specialists, physicists, nurses, social workers, physical therapists, speech pathologists, dieticians and others. Teams gather weekly to discuss diagnoses and treatments for cancer patients.
Teams consider the type of cancer you have, how advanced it is and other conditions you have in making recommendations for your treatment. The team approach goes beyond that weekly meeting. Sub-groups, a mini-team if you will, may meet with you or each other at every step in your treatment. You will get to know many members of your team, but may never see others.
Our qualifications
Since University Cancer Care is part of an academic medical center, you will find the triad of care, teaching and research provides an exemplary level of screening, diagnosis, and treatment. Our doctors and specialists hold certifications from numerous national organizations and many are fellowship trained, which means they have extra years of study and experience in their field.
University Cancer Care researchers and doctors are studying multiple ways to better detect, diagnose and treat cancer. They work together to provide you the best treatment based on the latest research. Our doctors and staff review the basics each day as they teach every detail of cancer care to our state’s emerging medical caregivers.
You might say your team is your link to what we know, what we are learning each day and what we have yet to discover about cancer prevention, detection, diagnosis and treatment.
Professional associations
Doctors, nurses and other specialists hold certifications from many professional organizations and maintain memberships and hold offices in many groups to help them stay up to date on the latest in cancer care.
Clinical trials
Clinical trials provide a way to find out how well new medicines, combinations of medicines or new techniques work to detect, diagnose or treat cancer. Some may include small improvements on existing treatments. Others may be larger tests of medicines which have shown promise in smaller trials. If you enroll in a clinical trial, you will be part of a test for a new cancer treatment or technique.
Before you can enroll, doctors screen you to be sure you meet the requirements for that trial. You are still in control of your treatment, and if you choose, you can withdraw at any time. Clinical trials help doctors refine cancer treatment and learn more about how to prevent, diagnose and treat it. Participants in clinical trials may receive treatment considered the standard for their disease or a new treatment. Our doctors closely monitor them as the trial progresses.
University Cancer Care initiates and participates in many clinical trials. Those include trials run by the Southwest Oncology Group, Radiation Therapy Oncology Group, the Cancer Trials Support Unit, the Gynecologic Oncology Group and the Children’s Oncology Group, large networks which involve many hospitals and clinics and whose trials are administered through the National Cancer Institute.