come here often?

Isn't my nephew the cutest thing ever? 

Anyway.....
Only in NY. Only in NY would a creepy guy try to hit on me if I were an oncologist. I swear to G-d, today, on my way home from work, I get on the subway, and by some miracle, there's space for me to sit. So I slide onto the bench, and I realize I'm still wearing my ID tag around my neck. The man next to me (probably in his 40s) looks me up and down a few times (I'm wearing a polo and a madras skirt), looks at my ID tag, and says lasciviously, "So.....are you an oncologist?", with a creepy grin. And though I wish I could be an oncologist, I smiled and said, "No, I'm in public health." And with that, he promptly looked away and didn't acknowledge me for the rest of the trip. Strange.

On Monday, the Psychiatry/Behavioral Medicine fellows are participating in a Symposium at the main hospital, and I get to go! I'm so excited for 6 hours of cancer talk. I'm excited to see what interventions they've researched and what programs might be in the works for patients. Every day I am amazed yet again at the brainpower under one roof. And it hasn't been a rare occurrence to be reading articles for my lit review and suddenly realize that the authors of the article work at MSKCC. I'm still a little starstruck. 

I've been thinking a lot about cancer, even when I go home after work, and many times I wish we could do more for patients. I have a friend who is a pediatric oncologist at Hopkins - here's his blog -  and he told me about a patient of his whose cancer came back. She has medulloblastoma, which is the most common malignant CNS (central nervous system) tumor in children. It is a cerebellar tumor, and the cerebellum is a part of the brain that plays a role in sensory perception and motor control. She has had one bone marrow transplant (BMT) and is preparing for a second because of the recurrence. It just breaks my heart. You can read about BMTs here - they are incredibly taxing. And this 11 year old little girl is going through this. It just doesn't seem fair. For a second, it gets discouraging. But paradoxically, that is the very same thing that inspires me and reinforces why I am doing what I am.