Brandon Staton, of the the hugely popular photoblog Humans of New York was on site in the Pediatrics Department at MSK, documenting the stories of some of our young patients, their families, and our amazing staff on M9. Follow along in the coming days and weeks as a new story is told each day on HONY’s Facebook page. HONY has also created a fundraiser to raise money to research the rare cancers these kids are battling.

MSK Nurses had a strong showing at this year’s ONS Annual Congress in San Antonio, Texas. There were 23 accepted abstracts from 65 MSK authors (including 61 of our nurses!).  Six of those abstracts were podium presentations. Congratulations presenters!

• START, PAUSE, STOP: A DEDICATED AMBULATORY PHASE I IMMUNOTHERAPY CLINIC’S APPROACH TO MANAGING PATIENTS ON IMMUNE MODULATORS. RuthAnn Gordon, MSN, FNP-BC, OCN, MaryKate Kasler, MSN ACNP-BC, DNP(c), and Kristin Stasi, BSN, RN.
• SAFETY AND EFFICACY OF SCALP COOLING FOR CHEMOTHERAPY-INDUCED ALOPECIA: FORTY YEARS OF LITERATURE. Mikel Ross, RN, OCN, CBCN, Tricia Sarov, BSN, RN, OCN, and Erica Fischer-Cartlidge, MSN, CNS, CBCN, AOCNS, et al.
• BREAKTHROUGH CANCER PAIN (BTCP): PUTTING EVIDENCE INTO PRACTICE.Lisa Keller, RN, OCN, MS, et al.
• THE ADVOCACY ROLE OF THE CASE MANAGER FOR BONE MARROW TRANSPLANT PATIENTS THROUGHOUT THE CARE CONTINUUM. Carmen Castillo, RN, BSN, CCM, and Mary McDonough, RN, MSN, CCM.
• WHEN DO WE TREAT PORTAL VEIN THROMBOSIS IN PATIENTS WITH GASTROINTESTINAL MALIGNANCIES? EDUCATING FOR BETTER PATIENT OUTCOMES—IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING. Natasha Ramrup, MSN, RN, OCN, Douglas Koo, MD, MPH
• WALK A MILE IN ANOTHER’S SHOES: IMPROVING COLLABORATION AND COMMUNICATION ACROSS INFUSION UNITS THROUGH A CHARGE NURSE EXCHANGE PROGRAM. Jaclyn Andronico, MSN, CNS, OCN, AOCNS, Lorna Thomas, RN, OCN, Carolina Lochner, RN, OCN, Christen Hughes, RN, OCN, Ramona Cruz, RN, OCN, Jennifer Moore, RN, OCN.

Beth Behrs (Caroline Channing, 2 Broke Girls) will be starring in a new off-Broadway comedy, Halley Feiffer’s A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gynecologic Oncology Unit at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center of New York City, a play about a couple in the middle of a nasty divorce that find themselves brought together again when both of their mothers become roommates at MSK. “Together, this unlikely duo must negotiate some of life’s biggest challenges… while making some of the world’s most inappropriate jokes. Can these two very lost people learn to laugh through their pain and lean on each other when all they really want to do is run away?”

The show begins in previews on May 19th and opens on June 7th at the Lucille Lortel Theatre (121 Christopher Street). For more information.

The Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance announced seven winners of its annual Young Investigators in Cancer Research prize. MSK had two winners of this $200,000 annual prize, which is awarded to support research in explorative and high risk/high reward areas where traditional funding is lacking.

Andrea Ventura, MD, PhD, who is using genome-editing to identify molecular mechanisms underpinning lung cancer initial and progression; and Omar Abdel-Wahab, MD, who is identifying novel transcripts, pathways, and therapeutic strategies to target spliceosomal-mutant malignancies in leukemias.

Several new prostate cancer screening tests have been developed which can tell significantly more information than the standard PSA tests, and can give doctors a more accurate idea as to how aggressively to treat. MSK recently developed a test called the 4Kscore, which analyzes four different types of PSA related proteins from blood samples calculates the likelihood, from 1% to 100%, that a biopsy would find an aggressive cancer, defined as a Gleason score of 7 or above.