This will be my fourth year participating in the Pan-Mass Challenge, and my 5th year as a pediatric oncologist.   As I look back over this period of time, as well as over the past 15 years of my medical and scientific training, memories of the long hours on-call and in the laboratory have been replaced by the faces of the patients I have cared for. I see now that much of who I have become as an oncologist is due to the patients I have cared for. It is enormously humbling to have parents and patients put their trust and faith in us as physicians, and for that I will be forever grateful.

As I now focus the majority of my efforts on the development of new cancer therapeutics, it is possible for me to finally appreciate the full scope of the challenge to bring new cures to children with cancer.  The challenges in the economy only make things that much more diffcult, and makes your support that much more critical. 

 

Once again, I have choose to participate in the Pan-Mass Challenge to honor of all of my patients - most of whom are alive today as a direct result of the advances in science and clinical care provided by the Jimmy Fund Clinic and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.  For those whose diseases we were not yet able to cure, I ride in their memory, with the promise to continue to fight for new treatments on their behalf. 

Thank you,

Sam Blackman