Harry A. Drabkin, M.D. Director, Hematology Oncology Division Mary Gilbreth Chair in Clinical Oncology

The Division of Hematology/Oncology consists of 18 faculty members.  Twelve of these individuals are full-time faculty with significant clinical commitments with one part-time faculty member who has retired from private practice and receives a nominal salary based on collections.  Four faculty members have no clinical commitments and are employed entirely in basic science activities at the bench.  One part-time faculty member who also sees patients at the Ralph H. Johnson VAMC and helps staffs a Wednesday general oncology clinic staffed with four hemonc fellows. The full-time faculty includes six full Professors, three Associate Professors, six Assistant Professors, two Instructors and one part-time Professor.

Fifty percent of the Division's total effort is devoted to clinical activity at the Medical University, including the inpatient wards, consult services and the clinics at the Hollings Cancer Center, and at the affiliated Veterans Affairs Medical Center.  These activities include solid tumor oncology, benign and malignant hematology, and Bone Marrow Transplant.  Three faculty members also practice a combined total of six half-days at the East Cooper Medical Arts Building, Mount Pleasant (in an outreach facility run by the Department of Medicine).  Chemotherapy infusion is also available at that site.  Collections derived from evaluation and management activities average $1.6 million/year.

Faculty recruitment was the top priority of the Division of Hematology and Oncology during FY08/FY09 and eight outstanding individuals were hired:  Steve Chin, M.D., gastrointestinal cancer and psychiatry; Neal Christiansen, M.D., breast and general medical oncology; Luciano Costa, M.D., malignant hematology; Ali-Reza Golshayan, M.D., genitourinary cancer; Charles S. Greenberg, M.D., benign hematology, clotting and coagulation; Rita Kramer, M.D., breast; Keisuke Shirai, M.D., head, neck, lung cancer and palliative care; Melanie Thomas, M.D. gastrointestinal cancer.  With fierce competition for oncologists, the Division remains focused on further expansion.

The Division, in conjunction with the Hollings Cancer Center (HCC) and the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center, serves as a statewide referral center for solid tumor oncology, benign and malignant hematology and bone marrow transplant.  Multidisciplinary clinics at the HCC allow patients with certain malignancies to see all of their physicians in one appointment.  Clinics include breast, thoracic, neuro-oncology and head/neck cancer.  Carol A. Sherman, M.D., Medical Director of the HCC Clinics, and Robert K. Stuart, M.D., are well known in the Charleston community and consistently earn high ratings from patients and families.  Dr. Sherman's work has inspired more than a million dollars in gifts from grateful patients.  Dr. Stuart has developed compounds for leukemias and lymphomas and is achieving high cure rates.

Dr. Melanie Thomas joined MUSC in August 2008 as the 20th researcher recruited to South Carolina through the state's Centers of Economic Excellence (CoEE) Program, established to drive the state's exonomy by using state funds to create research centers at the state's three research universities.  Dr. Thomas holds the Grace E. DeWolff Endowed Chair in Medical Oncology at MUSC.  She is also Associate Director of Clinical Investigations.

Dr. Thomas is the first woman named as an endowed chair for the program.  CoEE endowed chairs are internationally renowned scientists who direct the research conducted at the centers.  Dr. Thomas will lead the Gastrointestinal Cancer Diagnostics CoEE at MUSC.  Gastrointestinal (GI) cancers include cancer of the stomach, liver, pancreas, colon and elsewhere in the GI tract.  Research at the CoEE will include searching for new targets for GI cancer treatment and identifying new ways to screen for GI cancer.  The CoEE will place an emphasis on esophageal cancer.  South Carolina has the nation's 14th-highest death rate from esophageal cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute.  Thomas will develop a clinical trials program in gastrointestinal malignancies at the CoEE.  Currently, she is the principal investigator for 17 clinical trials.

The Division has a fully accredited Fellowship Program with ten accredited slots but we are funded for only nine slots.  The utilization of these nine funded slots equal three slots per year for a three year accredited training program.  These positions are supported by MUSC hospital and by the VA, like most of the Fellowship programs in this institution.  Efforts are underway to "diversify the portfolio" of Fellowship support.  In the current year, one slot was fully funded by pharmaceutical funds; a grant proposal for a similar amount of money has been submitted for next year.

The National Institutes of Health, the Veterans Administration, U.S. Department of Energy, and commercial entities fund the Division's research enterprise.  Faculty members serve as principal investigators on more than eighty open clinical trials.  Under the mentorship of Robert Gemmill, Ph.D., the Division is developing the next generation of researchers by engaging more fellows in this important work.  New, research-focused faculty members Patrick Nassare, Ph.D., and Vincent Potiron, Ph.D., are addressing angiogenesis and the tumor suppressor gene, molecule cema 3F, in their respective work.

The Hollings Cancer Center (HCC) celebrated its 20th anniversary in February 2008.  HCC is the largest academic-based cancer program in South Carolina.  The event paid special recognition to the Blood and Bone Marrow Transplant Program and its former Director, Debra Frei-Lahr, M.D., along with HCC physicians, staff and patients.

When Robert K. Stuart, M.D., founded MUSC's Blood and Marrow Transplant Team, now housed within the Hollings Cancer Center, he brought a unique perspective to the position, that of a cancer survivor.

Recruited to MUSC in 1985 as the founding Director of the MUSC Hematology-Oncology Division, Dr. Stuart has applied his extensive clinical and leadership skills in establishing South Carolina's first Blood and Marrow Transplant (BMT) Program.  In 1987, he performed the state's first bone marrow transplant and then fought to have Medicare and Medicaid recognize MUSC as a transplant facility, thus easing the financial burden of this potentially lifesaving procedure.

In twenty years, Dr. Stuart and his team have completed more than 800 procedures for adult and pediatric patients with benign and malignant hematologic disorders including autologous stem cell and bone marrow transplants.  It is home to the state's only National Marrow Donor Program certified unrelated-donors program as well as the only pediatric and cord blood transplant programs.  The program is considered a pioneer in outpatient bone marrow transplants.

Now director of the MUSC BMT Program and nationally recognized for his work, Dr. Stuart attributes the program's success to someone other than himself.  "It's all about courageous patients," he says.  "For their sake, we still have far to go."