Your new Hematology and Oncology position is predominantly outpatient, however there will be some inpatient consultations and as appropriate additional rounding on your patients, roughly 1 to 5 patients per week. Your outpatient practice will consist of 8 to 12 encounters daily. Our current providers, among them, average 1 to 6 new patient visits per day, which has a minimum of one hour allocated to these visits. Follow-up visits will have at least a half hour allocated for them and can go longer as needed. Additionally, you may encounter 1 to 5 telemedicine visits per week based on the needs of your patients and their potential travel limitations. 1 to 5 Bone Marrow Biopsies are conducted each month.
Clinically you will be managing high acuity leukemia and lymphoma patients. Most patients can present at stage 3 or stage 4 when we first get to see them due to the geographical constraints on a vast number of our Alaskan Native beneficiaries. Some inpatient chemotherapy (based on drug toxicity) is prescribed and managed on 5 West by chemo certified Oncology nurses. If the patient is newly diagnosed or requires immediate chemotherapy the first 1 to 2 doses may be given on the inpatient unit. Intrathecal chemotherapy is given via lumbar puncture or Ommaya reservoir for appropriate patients.
Radiation Therapy is provided by a physician group at Alaska Regional Hospital by physicians who are credentialed with ANMC. They are known as the strongest group in Alaska and are very responsive to the needs of our patients and providers. Our patients are generally seen the same day or the very next day. We provide transportation for our patients to be seen at outside hospitals such as Alaska Regional, Seattle Cancer Care Alliance.
Oncology surgeries are performed by General Surgeons based on their areas of interest and expertise. Some specialize in breast, colon, and stomach and other subspecialize based on their experiences. One General Surgeon at ANMC is hepatobiliary trained and we also have surgeons in gynecologic oncology and urologic oncology.