Approach to Care

UPMC Cancer Centers strives to provide the highest quality of comprehensive clinical care for each of our patients. We have more than 600 scientists and health care professionals in more than 30 disciplines working together with the goal of helping people with cancer. All of UPMC Cancer Centers' activities are exclusively dedicated to, and focused on, cancer.

Our multidisciplinary approach to care provides the most comprehensive care for each patient. This approach allows us to utilize the skills of specialists in every discipline to determine the most effective and complete treatments for all types of cancer. Patients at UPMC Cancer Centers directly benefit from this approach and are treated by a team of individuals whose care is unequaled in depth of knowledge, skills and experience in both common and rare types of cancer. These teams are organized by the type and stage of the patient's disease in order to give the most appropriate level of care. Our patients are treated by as many different specialists as needed for various aspects of his or her disease – yet personalized attention is never compromised. There is always one primary physician who coordinates the patient's care.

Patient care teams encompass many individuals. This approach utilizes staff in multiple departments, integrating their knowledge and expertise in various patient care areas. In addition to the medical oncologist who plans the treatment and serves as the patient's primary physician, an oncology nurse monitors care, answers questions, provides emotional support and teaches the patient about follow-up care and how to get the most from treatment. Other members of the health care team may include surgical oncologists, who use surgery to treat cancer; radiation oncologists, who use radiation therapy to treat cancer; radiologists, who diagnose cancer with x-rays and other radiation-based methods; immunologists, who study the body's natural defenses against cancer; pathologists, who diagnose and study cancer tissues in the laboratory; plastic surgeons; molecular biologists, who study how cancer develops; geneticists, who study how heredity affects cancer risk; drug development specialists, social workers; pharmacists; dietitians; psychologists and psychiatrists; dentists and financial counselors. In addition, an outpatient comprehensive cancer pain clinic offers cancer patients other approaches to pain management.

At UPMC Cancer Centers, we continually strive to better understand this disease, knowing how it affects the lives of patients and their families. We are fully prepared to treat the whole patient and every aspect of his or her disease, with the most comprehensive cancer care available.

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