Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK or MSKCC) is a cancer treatment and research institution in Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1884 as the New York Cancer Hospital. MSKCC is one of 72 National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers.[3][4] It had already been renamed and relocated, to its present site, when the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research was founded in 1945, and built adjacent to the hospital. The two medical entities formally coordinated their operations in 1960, and formally merged as a single entity in 1980. Its main campus is located at 1275 York Avenue between 67th and 68th Streets in Manhattan.
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center
1275 York Avenue,
Manhattan, New York City, New York, U.S.
498 (as of 2018)
New York Cancer Hospital
1884[1] (as New York Cancer Hospital)
In U.S. News & World Report's 2021–2022 Best Hospitals, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) is ranked the second-best hospital for cancer care in the nation after MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.[5]
History[edit]
New York Cancer Hospital (1884–1934)[edit]
The hospital was founded on the Upper West Side of Manhattan[2] in 1884 as New York Cancer Hospital by a group that included John Jacob Astor III and his wife Charlotte.[6] The hospital appointed as an attending surgeon William B. Coley, who pioneered an early form of immunotherapy to eradicate tumors.[7] Rose Hawthorne, daughter of author Nathaniel Hawthorne, trained there in the summer of 1896 before founding her own order, Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne.[8] In 1899, the hospital was renamed General Memorial Hospital for the Treatment of Cancer and Allied Diseases.[9] In 1902, Arabella Huntington made a US$100,000 (equivalent to $3.5 million in 2023) bequest in memory of her late husband Collis Potter Huntington to establish the first cancer research fund in the country, the Huntington Fund for Cancer Research.[6]
Around 1910, James Ewing, a professor at Cornell University's medical college, established a collaboration with Memorial Hospital with the help and funding of industrialist and philanthropist James Douglas, who gave $100,000 (equivalent to $3.3 million in 2023) to endow twenty beds for clinical research, equipment for working with radium, and a clinical laboratory for that purpose.[10] Douglas' enthusiasm and funding for development of radiation therapy for cancer inspired Ewing to become one of the pioneers in developing this treatment.[10] Ewing soon took over effective leadership of clinical and laboratory research at Memorial.[10] In 1916 the hospital was renamed again, dropping "General" to become known as Memorial Hospital for the Treatment of Cancer and Allied Diseases.[11][12]
The first fellowship training program in the U.S. was created at Memorial in 1927, funded by the Rockefellers.[13] In 1931 the then-most-powerful 900k-volt X-ray tube was put into use in radiation-based cancer treatment at Memorial; the tube had been built by General Electric over several years.[14] In 1931 Ewing was formally appointed president of the hospital, a role he had effectively played until then,[10] and was featured on the cover of Time magazine as "Cancer Man Ewing";[15] the accompanying article described his role as one of the most important cancer doctors of his era.[16] He worked at the Memorial until his retirement, in 1939.[17] Under his leadership, Memorial became a model for other cancer centers in the United States, combining patient care with clinical and laboratory research,[13] and it was said of him that "the relationship of Ewing to the Memorial Hospital can best be expressed in the words of Emerson, 'Every institution is but the lengthening shadow of some man.' Dr. Ewing is the Memorial Hospital".[10]
Memorial Hospital and the Sloan Kettering Institute (1934–1980)[edit]
In 1934, John D. Rockefeller Jr. donated land on York Avenue for a new location.[18] Two years later, he granted Memorial Hospital for the Treatment of Cancer and Allied Diseases (Memorial Hospital) $3.0 million (equivalent to $65.9 million in 2023) and the hospital began their move across town.[12] Memorial Hospital officially reopened at the new location in 1939.[19][20] In 1945, the chairman of General Motors, Alfred P. Sloan, donated $4.0 million (equivalent to $67.7 million in 2023) to create the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research through his Sloan Foundation, and Charles F. Kettering, GM's vice president and director of research, personally agreed to oversee the organization of a cancer research program based on industrial techniques.[21] The originally independent research institute was built adjacent to Memorial Hospital.[21]
In 1948, Cornelius P. Rhoads became the director of Memorial. Rhoads had run chemical weapons programs for the United States Army in World War II, and had been involved in the work that led to the discovery that nitrogen mustards could potentially be used as cancer drugs.[22]: 91–92 He fostered a collaboration between Joseph H. Burchenal, a clinician at Memorial and Gertrude B. Elion and George H. Hitchings at Burroughs Wellcome, who discovered 6 MP; the collaboration led to the development and eventual wide use of this cancer drug.[22]: 91–92 [23]
From the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s Chester M. Southam conducted pioneering clinical research on virotherapy and cancer immunotherapy at MSK; however he conducted his research on people without their informed consent. He did this to patients under his care or others' care, and to prisoners.[24][25] In 1963 some doctors objected to the lack of consent in his experiments and reported him to the Regents of the University of the State of New York which found him guilty of fraud, deceit, and unprofessional conduct, and in the end, he was placed on probation for a year.[24][25] Southam's research experiments and the case at the Regents were covered in The New York Times.[26][27][28][29][30]
In 1960, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center was formed as a new corporation to coordinate the two institutions, and John Heller, the former director of the National Cancer Institute was named its president.[31] At the end of the 1960s, as the field of pediatric oncology began seeing success in treating children with cancer, Memorial opened an outpatient pediatric day hospital, partly to deal with the growing number of cancer survivors.[32]
In the early 1970s, Burchenal and Benno Schmidt, a professional investor and trustee of MSK, were appointed to the presidential panel that initiated the U.S. federal government's War on Cancer in the early 1970s.[22]: 184 When Congress passed the National Cancer Act of 1971 as part of that effort, Memorial Sloan Kettering was designated as one of only three Comprehensive Cancer Centers nationwide.[33]
In 1977, Jimmie C. Holland established a full-time psychiatric service at MSK dedicated to helping people with cancer cope with their disease and its treatment; it was one of the first such programs and was part of the creation of the field of psycho-oncology.[34][35]
Training[edit]
Approximately 1,700 medical residents and Fellows are in training at MSK. There are 575 postdoctoral researchers training at MSK labs and a combined 288 PhD and MD-PhD candidates.[61]
In 2004, the Louis V. Gerstner, Jr. Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences was opened at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.[72] The first students graduated in 2012.[73] As of January 2019, the dean of the graduate school is cell biologist Michael Overholtzer. The founding dean, serving for over a decade, was molecular biologist Ken Marians.[74]
The Tri-Institutional MD–PhD Program is a partnership of MSKCC, Weill Cornell Medicine, and The Rockefeller University. The dual degree program takes advantage of the close proximity of these three institutions for collaboration on biomedical research and medical training. MSKCC also has an academic partnership with Weill Cornell Medicine known as the Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences.[75]
Reputation[edit]
In 2015, Charity Watch rated Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center an "A".[77] That same year, heads of the charity received $2,107,939 to $2,639,669 salary/compensation from the charity. CEO Craig B. Thompson received $2,554,085 salary/compensation from the charity.[77]
HCG Cancer Centre