University of Mississippi Medical Center Cancer Institute
Jackson, MS

The University of Mississippi Medical Center opened in Jackson, Mississippi in 1955, but its beginnings go back to 1903 when a two-year medical school was established on the University of Mississippi campus in Oxford. The institution began in Jackson as a four-year medical school, a nursing department, a library, and a teaching hospital.  The Medical Center now includes the School of Medicine, the School of Nursing, the School of Dentistry, the School of Health Related Professions and the School of Graduate Studies in the Health Sciences.  The University Hospitals and Clinics are the teaching hospitals for all Medical Center educational programs and a 722-bed diagnostic and treatment referral center for the entire state. 

Cancer Institute
Following almost half of a century of leadership in cancer care, education and research in Mississippi, the Medical Center reorganized its cancer programs in 2004 to create the University of Mississippi Medical Center Cancer Institute.  The mission of the Cancer Institute is three-fold:  to provide state-of-the art comprehensive cancer treatment that maximizes the quality of life for patients and their families; to educate oncology professionals to serve as a resource for cancer care throughout Mississippi; and to support basic and clinical research that can be readily translated and applied to clinical cancer care.

Newly constructed space houses ambulatory clinics for hematology, oncology, surgical specialties and radiation oncology, providing patients access to a broad range of services in one location.  The facility also includes offices for the Divisions of Hematology and Oncology, Cancer Research and Registry, the Mississippi Cancer Registry, and Cancer Institute Administration; an Imaging Center to open in 2006 and 40,000 sq ft of research space.

Partnership
UMC signed a collaborative agreement in January 2006 to partner with Singing River Hospital System in addressing cancer disparities experienced in the underserved population under the NCI grant otherwise known as the Mississippi/Alabama Radiation Oncology Research Partnership.  UMC is helping identify clinical studies that may be beneficial to Singing River’s patient population and is working with the hospital to develop strategies for promoting clinical trials and in addressing issues related to the participation in such trials.  As a result of the partnership, Singing River Hospital System is now an affiliate of the Southwest Oncology Group and the Gynecologic Oncology Group through the University of Mississippi Medical Center.

A full TELESYNERGY® system using off-the-shelf software on a Windows XP Workstation was installed in the UMC Cancer Institute in April 2006.