You recently transitioned into community practice at Smilow Cancer Hospital at Yale New Haven’s Saint Francis Campus. How do you bring Smilow’s mission of translational research to your patients in Hartford and Enfield?
There are various ways through which we are bringing the research to the community in Hartford and Enfield. We present patient cases and participate in multidisciplinary tumor board conferences at Smilow Cancer Hospital. This allows us to collaborate with our colleagues at the main campus and across the Network and identify best treatments and clinical trials for individual patients. We are also utilizing Yale’s molecular profiling expertise to identify specific gene mutations in our patients’ tumors and subsequently personalize their treatment with targeted therapies. This is already helping many of my patients from Hartford and Enfield. In addition, we are working to open clinical trials at our Saint Francis Campus in Hartford to provide easy access to new therapies for our patients.
Your clinical focus is on the care of patients with gastrointestinal cancers. What new therapies and trials do you have to offer your patients?
There are many clinical trials for patients with gastrointestinal cancers. We have very exciting immunotherapy trials available for patients with gastric, colon, liver, and pancreatic cancer. Immunotherapy has changed the paradigm of cancer treatment and Yale Cancer Center is at the forefront of developing new immunotherapies for our patients. In addition, we also have a very important clinical trial available for colon cancer prevention.
How do you align your clinical care with the research efforts at Yale Cancer Center?
As we embrace the Smilow pillar of “Closer to Free,” alignment between clinical care and research becomes necessary. In our clinic, while we take care of patients, our focus is to provide best possible treatment and improve cancer care. If you review the NCCN guidelines, for many patients the best recommended treatment is a clinical trial. So when I am at the main campus in New Haven working with the research teams, the focus remains the same. One cannot provide good cancer care without aligning oneself with research. The collaboration between Saint Francis Hospital and Smilow Cancer Hospital has made this connection possible.