Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center

The original New York Cancer Hospital, built 1884–86, now housing, at 455 Central Park West and 106th St.

Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) is a cancer treatment and research institution founded in 1884 as the New York Cancer Hospital. The main campus is located at 1275 York Avenue, between 67th and 68th Streets, in Manhattan New York City. MSKCC has long been a leader in cancer surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy and is the world's largest and oldest dedicated cancer hospital. It was the first to develop services specifically dedicated to the psychiatric aspects of cancer, to the relief of cancer pain, and to genetic counseling. As of 2012, U.S. News & World Report ranks MSKCC as the #2 cancer hospital in the country.

History

Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center is composed of two intimately related institutions: Memorial Hospital for Cancer and Allied Diseases provides patient care and Sloan–Kettering Institute is focused on basic-science research.

Memorial Hospital was founded in 1884 as the New York Cancer Hospital by a group that included John Jacob Astor and his wife, Charlotte, the hospital was originally located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The hospital was later renamed General Memorial Hospital for the Treatment of Cancer and Allied Diseases. In 1936, the hospital began its move to its present location on York Avenue when John D. Rockefeller, Jr., donated the land upon which, in 1939, Memorial Hospital was constructed. The current Physician-In-Chief is Robert E. Wittes.

Sloan–Kettering Institute was established in 1945 with a US$4 million gift from the foundation of Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. Half the gift was to fund construction of a 13-storey research facility and the other half to provide annual operating expenses. Charles F. Kettering, vice president and director of research for General Motors Corporation, was to organize and apply modern American industrial research techniques to cancer research. The current director is Thomas Kelly.

In addition to the Sloan grant, a public campaign to raise an additional $3–4 million was undertaken. Laurance Rockefeller, an important financier and philanthropist of the prominent Rockefeller family, became an important leader in donations and fundraising.

At the August 8, 1945, announcement about the research institute, Sloan and Kettering emphasized that the dramatic news of the atomic bomb, developed with a US$2 billion research program, was a graphic illustration of what can be accomplished by scientifically organized research as practiced by American industry. If as much money and talented personnel were available as the government had for the atomic bomb, they said, very rapid progress could be made in cancer research.

The Memorial Sloan Kettering International Center, at 1425 First Avenue on the corner of East 74th Street, is in a building that was built in the 1930s with Perkins Eastman as architects, and remodeled in 1997.

As of November 1, 2010, the President and CEO of Memorial Sloan-Kettering is the oncologist and researcher Craig B. Thompson, MD.

Charity Watch rates Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center an "A". Heads of the charity received $1,955,000 to $2,557,000 salary/compensation from the charity. Harold Varmus, M.D. Past President/CEO, received $2,557,403 salary/compensation from the charity, which is the most money given by any charity to the head of that charity, according to Charity Watch.

Bendheim Integrative Medicine Center

Reputation

MSKCC has long been a leader in cancer surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy. It was the first to develop services specifically dedicated to the psychiatric aspects of cancer, to the relief of cancer pain, and to genetic counseling.

As of 2012, U.S. News & World Report ranks MSKCC as the #2 cancer hospital in the country.

Research

Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center is affiliated with the Weill Cornell Medical College, the Tri-Institutional MD/PhD program and the Tri-Institutional Training Program in Chemical Biology, which include MSKCC as one of its three sites (along with Weill-Cornell and Rockefeller University). MSKCC and Weill-Cornell operate a joint graduate program in biomedical sciences, the Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences. In 2004, Memorial Sloan-Kettering also established an independent graduate school, with a PhD. program in cancer biology: the Gerstner Sloan-Kettering Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. The inaugural class was admitted in July 2006. The first graduates received their PhD degrees in 2012.

MSKCC's new Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program, based at Memorial Hospital, focuses on translational research, with the goal of bringing discoveries made in the lab to the patient at the bedside.

Another focus of research at MSKCC is immunotherapy, or using the body's own immune system to fight cancer cells. In 2006 the center was one of six institutes (along with research centers at Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Chicago, and Stanford University) selected to receive a US$20 million grant for cancer research from the Ludwig Fund, created by the American billionaire Daniel K. Ludwig. The grant, one of the largest earmarked for cancer research the hospital has ever received, will be used for immunology research.

Patient care

There are 470 beds at Memorial Hospital and 24,486 patients were admitted in 2011. As well, 535,900 outpatient visits were accommodated at its Manhattan and regional facilities combined. Memorial Sloan-Kettering opened a new surgical center in the summer of 2006 with 21 operating rooms. MSKCC’s Brooklyn Infusion Center offers a “chemo-ready” model of patient care where patients have screening performed at the Manhattan facilities and then receive chemotherapy treatment at the Brooklyn Center, saving patient’s time and providing more personalized care closer to home. The Brooklyn Infusion Center, designed by ZGF Architects LLP, opened in 2010 and was awarded a 2011 Modern Healthcare Award of Excellence.

The hospital in popular culture

In music

• Vampire Weekend's song "A-Punk" made a reference to Sloan–Kettering in one verse, saying:

"A thousand years in one piece of silver,

she took it from his lily-white hand,

showed no fear—she'd seen the thing,

in the young men's wing at Sloan–Kettering."

• The Antlers's album Hospice features a song entitled "Kettering" and features a number of references to the cancer ward.

In film

In the 2008 movie Step Brothers, Will Ferrell's character Brennan Huff claims to have smoked marijuana with Johnny Hopkins and Sloan Kettering.

In the 1993 television film docudrama And the Band Played On, a male patient with Kaposi's sarcoma is seen being treated at Sloan Kettering.

In the 2001 series The Sopranos episode "Second opinion" Corrado Soprano seeks a second opinion on his cancer treatment from Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

In television

In the 13th episode of the television series House entitled "Cursed", Dr. Rowan Chase (played by Patrick Bauchau) mentions that he has been to Sloan-Kettering for his stage 4 lung cancer.

Mob initiation

In 1985, contract killer Joseph Paruta, who served under Sammy Gravano, was a terminal lung cancer patient, and was initiated into the Gambino crime family in a ceremony in his room at the cancer center and became a "made man". He later succumbed to the disease at his home in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn.

Current leadership

• Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center
  • Douglas A. Warner, III Chairman, Boards of Overseers and Managers, MSKCC
  • Craig B. Thompson, President, MSKCC
  • John Gunn, Executive Vice President

• Memorial Hospital
  • Jose Baselga, Physician-in-Chief
  • Colin B. Begg, Chair, Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics
  • George J. Bosl, Chair, Department of Medicine
  • Lisa De Angelis, Chair, Department of Neurology
  • Joseph O. Deasy, Chair, Department of Medical Physics
  • Philip H. Gutin, Chair, Department of Neurosurgery
  • Hedvig Hricak, Chair, Department of Radiology
  • Maureen Killackey, Deputy Physician-in-Chief and Medical Director, MSKCC Regional Care Network
  • Elizabeth N. McCormick, Chief Nursing Officer
  • Larry Norton, Deputy Physician-in-Chief for Breast Cancer Programs and Medical Director, Evelyn H. Lauder Breast Center
  • Richard J. O'Reilly, Chair, Department of Pediatrics
  • Melissa S. Pessin, Chair, Department of Laboratory Medicine
  • Victor E. Reuter, Vice Chairman, Pathology
  • Charles L. Sawyers, Chair, Human Oncology and Pathogenesis Program
  • Peter T. Scardino, Chair, Department of Surgery
  • Roger S. Wilson, Chair, Department of Anesthesiology & Critical Care Medicine

• Sloan-Kettering Institute
  • Thomas J. Kelly, Director, Sloan-Kettering Institute
  • Alexander Rudensky, Chair, Immunology Program
  • Kathryn V. Anderson, Chair, Developmental Biology Program
  • Alan Hall, Chair, Cell Biology Program
  • Kenneth J. Marians, Chair, Molecular Biology Program and Dean, Gerstner Sloan-Kettering Graduate School
  • Joan Massagué, Chair, Cancer Biology and Genetics Program
  • Nikola P. Pavletich, Chair, Structural Biology Program
  • Chris Sander, Chair, Computational Biology Program
  • David A. Scheinberg, Chair, Molecular Pharmacology & Chemistry Program

References

• "Sloan, Kettering to Combat Cancer; Studying Sketch of Proposed Cancer Research Institute". The New York Times. August 8, 1945. p. 1 (cont'd p. 40). 

External links

• Official website
• Gerstner Sloan–Kettering Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences
• Cornell/Rockefeller/Sloan Kettering Tri-Institutional MD-PhD Program
• Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences
• MSKCC Marathon Program