Last week, the 2011 Oncofertility Consortium Conference: Priorities for Sustainable Oncofertility Research and Patient Care, was held here in Chicago. One of the more than 150 attendees was a University of Pennsylvania medical school student, Katie Dillon, who works with Clarisa Gracia, MD, MSCE on oncofertility clinical research. She wrote an article for Making the Rounds, a blog from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, which we are posting here.
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By Katie Dillon
A Trip to Chi-town for Science!
This past week I traveled to Chicago for the Oncofertility Consortium, an annual conference held at Northwestern to discuss advances in the field of fertility preservation for cancer patients. As mentioned in my previous post, I am currently taking a year out from medical school to conduct clinical research in infertility, my field of interest. Oncofertility is an area in which my mentor, Dr. Clarisa Gracia, specializes.
Dr. Christos Coutifaris, Katie Dillon, and Dr. Clarisa Gracia
The field looks at cancer treatments like chemotherapy and radiation that are toxic to the reproductive organs. For a long time these effects have been a medical afterthought, as the focus on survival after cancer diagnosis took precedent over other health concerns. But as improved cancer therapies result in better prognoses, it is necessary to consider the side effects associated with treatment. Specifically it is important to think about fertility preservation before cancer treatment begins so that patients may have options down the road for building families…Read more about Katie Dillon’s trip to the 2011 Oncofertility Consortium Conference.
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View a new documentary about the Oncofertility Consortium’s first five years, A Roadmap for the Future: Inquiry, Discourse, and Innovation in the Oncofertility Consortium, which was first premiered at the Oncofertility Gala last Monday evening.