Upstate Medical University

A dream that’s been in the making for a very long time came true for Upstate University Hospital in Syracuse today.  The hospital held the official ribbon cutting of the 74 Million Dollar Upstate Cancer Center to provide expanded care and treatment in a welcoming, state of the art building.

The waiting and anxiety is over for about 150 fourth-year SUNY Upstate medical school students Friday who learned where they’ll begin their residencies.  

They opened envelopes as part of the annual rite of passage called “match day.”  The students we spoke to all received their first choices.  

Class co-president Dan Harris is one of five who will complete their residencies at St. Joseph's hospital in Syracuse.  Other facts about this graduation class: 

Neurosurgeons at Upstate’s Golisano Children’s Hospital say they’re the first in the world to use a minimally invasive laser therapy to treat a rare disease that causes tumors to grow on the brain. 

Doctor Zulma Tovar-Spinoza says the M-R-I technology uses lasers to eradicate the non-cancerous tumors, which cause seizures.  She says the difference between open surgery and the new procedure is night and day...

Construction on the Upstate Cancer Research Center at University Hospital in Syracuse is rapidly taking shape. 

The center will have a variety of medical services in a centralized location.  Many services are already being offered, like a specialized psychologist, who works to help the emotional and psychological needs that cancer patients and families deal with, and an integrated medicine specialist, who advises patients on non-traditional therapies they may wish to add to their traditional treatment methods. 

 Some of the construction and development Upstate Medical University is doing in Syracuse could fit perfectly with the Governor's Start-Up New York Initiative.  Research projects already underway could pave the way to future growth.