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Amy brings over three decades of experience in for-profit and nonprofit business management and ownership. In December 2017, she joined The Global Resource for Advancing Cancer Education as its Executive Director. She directs its growth in strategy, revenue, outreach, partnership, and programs.
GRACE is pleased to announce the acceptance of seven rising stars into the 5th year of the GRACE Patient Education Ambassadors Program for the 2023-24 Program Year!
All candidates have shown a genuine passion for patient education and innovation in connecting with the patient community. The program will encompass the participants creating content that will be featured on the GRACE website, working alongside GRACE faculty, Board, and staff, and learning the most current and effective communication skills needed to succeed at connecting and communicating with patients in their field. The program starts on July 1, 2023, and ends on June 30, 2024. We are excited to work with them over the next year to continue to educate cancer patients on the most current and emerging treatment options. Watch for new videos, articles, and podcasts featuring the passions that these amazing fellows have to share with the community!
Dr. Kaitlin Kyi
Dr. Kaitlin Kyi is a second-year oncology fellow at Wilmot Cancer Center in Rochester, NY. She will be starting her geriatric fellowship at University of Rochester Medical Center this summer.
Dr. Kyi completed her medical training at SUNY Upstate Medical University before completing her residency at the University of Rochester Medical Center, later serving as Chief Resident in Internal Medicine. She went on to an oncology fellowship soon after. During this, she became deeply committed to the field of geriatric oncology and advocacy for older patients with cancer, including awareness and education on stigmatizing language around this patient population. She is additionally passionate about narrative medicine and incorporating reflective writing into medical curricula for trainees.
Kaitlin is looking forward to learning and refining her communication and writing skills with patients and trainees. Outside the hospital, you can most often find Kaitlin reading, cooking, or running after her 1-year-old daughter.
Dr. Gladys Rodriguez
Dr. Gladys M. Rodriguez recently completed her hematology/oncology fellowship at Stanford in Palo Alto, California. She has just started her first job as an Assistant Professor of Medicine in Oncology/Hematology at Northwestern Feinberg School of Medicine specializing in gastrointestinal malignancies.
She completed her medical degree at Yale School of Medicine followed by an Internal Medicine residency at University of California, San Francisco. She holds a master’s degree in Epidemiology and Clinical Research from Stanford.
Dr. Rodriguez is passionate about cancer care equity, health literacy, community engagement, and studying trends in care and outcomes of minority patients with gastrointestinal cancers. Her goal is to identify and develop scalable interventions to address cancer care inequities. She obtained an ASCO Young Investigator Award in 2022 to develop and test culturally and linguistically tailored digital educational tools to reduce language and literacy barriers among Latinx patients with cancer.
She looks forward to exploring the parks, festivals, delicious food, cultural events, and museums in Chicago!
Dr. Ivy Riano
Dr. Ivy Riano is a second-year Hematology and Oncology Fellow at Dartmouth Cancer Center and an Instructor of Medicine at Geisel School of Medicine Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, USA.
She received her Medical Degree from Universidad Nacional de
Colombia in Bogota, Colombia, and moved to the U.S. to complete her Internal
Medicine residency at MetroWest Medical Center/Tufts School of Medicine in
Massachusetts, where she received the Isadore Nathan Rosenberg Clinical Research
Award for her research contributions.
Dr. Riano’s clinical interests include targeted therapy for lung cancer, with a particular interest in mechanisms of resistance to immunotherapy and the development of novel combinations of therapeutics agents. Dr. Riano is actively involved in clinical and translational research at the Dartmouth Cancer Center, an NCI-designated comprehensive center. Apart from her clinical interests in thoracic malignancies, she is also a leading and productive researcher in Global Oncology and cancer health disparities. Dr. Riano is a gender equity advocate and is persistently searching for strategies to improve the representation of minorities in Academia.
Dr. Matthew Kurian
Dr. Matthew Kurian currently serves as the chief hematology/oncology fellow at Seidman Cancer Center, Case Comprehensive Cancer Center in Cleveland, Ohio.
He completed a 6-year accelerated BS/MD program through Northeast Ohio Medical University and completed his internal medicine residency training at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. He will be joining St. Elizabeth’s Cancer Center in Edgewood, Kentucky as a lung and breast cancer specialist. He has a passion for bringing academic level care into the community through the enrollment of patients in clinical trials and improving access, equity, and education for patients and medical trainees. He is the part of the Case Western Reserve Academy of Scholars and was recognized as a Top Trainee Educator in 2023. He is also a Doximity Telehealth fellow and is passionate about the use of telehealth, virtual reality, and AI learning in improving the lives of those with cancer.
Outside of work, Dr. Kurian enjoys playing basketball and soccer, cheering on the Cincinnati Bengals and Cleveland Cavaliers, and spending time with his son and wife.
Dr. Jacob Adashek
Jacob J. Adashek, DO, is a medical oncology fellow at the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Dr Adashek has a special interest in precision medicine and personalized therapies in addition to first-in-human clinical trials. As a medical oncology fellow, he is being trained by world-renowned medical oncologists at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and caring for patients with a multitude of cancers. His oncology focus and areas of interest are early phase clinical trials and first-in-human studies as well as genomics and biomarker integration into cancer care and clinical trials.
Dr. Meera Ragavan
Dr. Meera Ragavan is an incoming cancer care delivery research scientist and thoracic medical oncologist at Kaiser Permanente Northern California
She believes strongly that as the treatment of cancer becomes more complex, personalized, and nuanced, it will be increasingly essential to ensure patient comprehension, empowerment, and autonomy over their cancer treatment journey. She is passionate about promoting equity and affordability in cancer care delivery and facilitating access to the myriad but often complex network of supportive care services, particularly for patients who are seen community oncology settings. She also hopes to use her training through the cancer GRACE program to develop communication and shared decision-making tools that help promote knowledge of and access to clinical trials, particularly for patients belonging to underrepresented racial/ethnic minority groups. She plans to dedicate her career to developing and improving patient-centered models of high value care delivery within oncology.
Meera received her M.D degree at Stanford University and stayed at Stanford to complete her training in Internal Medicine. She will complete her oncology fellowship in June of 2023 at the University of California, San Francisco, before joining Kaiser Permanente's Division of Research. She also holds a Masters in Public Health with a focus in health policy from the Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health.
Dr. Karan Jatwani
Dr. Karan Jatwani did his Medical School training at Government Medical College and Hospital Chandigarh, and took a year hiatus to work in an immunology lab at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City. He then started his residency at Mount Sinai West-Mount Sinai Morningside. This was followed by a year of training in Palliative Care at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He is currently a second year fellow at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center.
Dr. Jatwani is interested in Genitourinary Malignancies. He is also interested in advocating for Palliative Care integration in GU malignancies. He would also like to be a physician in an academic setting where he could be involved in designing clinical trials for novel therapies in cancers, and be involved in medical education involving both oncology and palliative care. He has been on the house staff council and actively involved in medical education during his residency. He was selected for the Mazumdar/Shaw fellowship at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in his Palliative Care Fellowship year for excellence in clinical and research achievements.
Dr. Jatwani is an avid soccer fan, he loves to cook (favorite cuisines are Indian, Italian and Mexican), and - Fun fact: His alternate career choice would have been a standup comedian or a restauranteur.
Congratulations Drs. Kyi, Rodriguez, Riano, Kurian, Adashek, Ragavan, and Jatwani!
#Genentech #Lilly #Exelixis #Merck
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