MPNforum Magazine

Dear MPN Patient Community,

The Mayo Clinic Cancer Center is a very special place where people come together joined by a mission to put patients first in alleviating the burden of Cancer. The Mayo Clinic has been my professional home for my entire career since 1991, with 18 years in training and on the staff of Mayo Clinic Rochester and now 8 years at the truly amazing Mayo Clinic in Arizona. I am incredibly proud and honored for the opportunities that I have had at Mayo Clinic, as well as the great honor and joy of caring for patients alongside each of you over these years.

Dr. Ruben Mesa demonstrating palpation

It is therefore with genuinely mixed emotions that I announce that I will be leaving Mayo Clinic in August of 2017 to assume the Directorship of University of Texas, San Antonio Health Science Cancer Center, an NCI Designated Cancer Center. This unique opportunity presented itself at the end of the natural arcs of my current leadership responsibilities at Mayo Clinic as both Chair of the Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology, and Deputy Director of the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center.

The newly expanded Cancer Center in San Antonio brings together the long history and tradition of the NCI Designated Cancer Center – Cancer Therapy Research Center (CTRC) founded in 1974 by Charles Coltman,MD in San Antonio with the Institute for Drug Development (first led to success with Mayo Clinic Adjunct Professor Dan Van Hoff, MD), the complete cancer service line of the CTRC and the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, and finally, a partner level relationship with the MD Anderson Cancer Center that begins this fall as the UT San Antonio MD Anderson Cancer Center. I look forward to bringing the many lessons I have learned from my time at Mayo Clinic (how patient centered care can be woven together with impactful research and education), learned from teachers, mentors, colleagues, and friends both physician and allied health staff alike to the wonderful community of San Antonio, patients of the region and new colleagues.

My, and my extended MPN group’s focus, will remain unaltered on improving the treatment options for MPN Patients, advancing the utilization of stem cell transplantation for these patients, and a commitment to not only better understand the impact MPNs have on patients through symptom burden and decreased quality of life – but also developing feasible and useful non-pharmacological interventions (i.e. yoga, meditation, cognitive and mindfulness therapy, nutrition interventions) to be coupled with pharmacological approaches.

My intent is the significant MPN center that will be developed at the UT Health San Antonio Cancer Center will be incremental, and not a replacement, to the programmatic efforts built at Mayo Clinic in Arizona. Expansion of clinical trials, new initiatives, collaborative grants, and core membership of the MPN Research Consortium to San Antonio are planned to begin rolling out after I begin my role as Director this fall.

MPN Patients who are currently receiving care at Mayo Clinic in Arizona both I and my staff are committed to your care needs being well addressed whether you will continue with my colleagues in Arizona, or you choose to transfer your care to the UT San Antonio Cancer Center. We will ensure that good contact remains between myself and my staff in Arizona regarding your care needs for the foreseeable future, as well have established a special contact point at UT San Antonio Cancer Center for care needs beginning this fall. Those that choose to continue their care with me in San Antonio I will work with our colleagues at Mayo Clinic for appropriate transfer of records. Although I have a start date in later August 2017, I do not yet have an official date my MPN clinic will open (given need for completion of Texas Medical Licensure etc.) at this moment your information will be gathered and appointments to be forthcoming.

Patient Contact Information for MPN Patients –

Epp Goodwin – Senior Referral Coordinator
CTRC/UT Health San Antonio Cancer Center
7979 Wurzbach Rd, San Antonio, TX 78229
Phone: 210-450-5798
Contact Email: goodwine@uthscsa.edu

My Contact Information – August 2017

Ruben A. Mesa, MD, FACP
Director, UT Health San Antonio Cancer Center
Mays Family Foundation Distinguished University Chair
7979 Wurzbach Rd, San Antonio, TX 78229
Phone: 210-450-1406

Sincerely,

Ruben

Ruben A. Mesa, MD, FACP

CONSULTANT HEMATOLOGIST-MAYO CLINIC in ARIZONA
Chair, Division of Hematology & Medical Oncology
Deputy Director, Mayo Clinic Cancer Center
Chair, Arizona Cancer Coalition, Professor of Medicine