Angela Coscio, MD, Ather A. Siddiqi, MD
Having to travel for cancer treatment can cause anxiety and frustration for patients and their families. Thankfully, North Houstonians need to travel no farther than St. Luke’s Health – The Woodlands for care from some of the world’s foremost oncologists at the Dan L Duncan Comprehensive Cancer Center (DLDCC), an NCI-designated cancer center.
Thanks to a partnership between St. Luke’s Health, DLDCC, and Baylor College of Medicine, physicians at all three institutions consult regularly on oncology care and that includes the treatment of patients who prefer to be treated closer to home in The Woodlands community.
Members of the oncology team who practice at St. Luke’s Health – The Woodlands are DLDCC faculty members. As a result, they have access to cancer specialists in several areas who are available for consultation at any time. Patients treated at St. Luke’s Health – The Woodlands receive high-quality care including a carefully developed plan that includes everything they medically need for diagnosis and individualized treatment. For those patients requiring a procedure or treatment that is only available at the downtown cancer center, The Woodlands team remains closely involved so the patient can return for the remainder of their treatment.
“At St. Luke’s Health – The Woodlands, we offer the perfect balance of an academic cancer center in a comforting local environment. We have access to the medical center in Houston, clinical trials, and referrals when needed. We have onsite surgeons, radiation, medical oncology, and support staff for most of the common cancers and treatments for cancer yet we are of a size where everybody knows your name,” said Hematologist/Oncologist Angela Coscio, MD, who works closely with an onsite oncology team that includes Hematologist/Oncologists Yelenda Bracchini, MD, and Laura Meza-Rios, MD.
In the last year, the oncology staff at St. Luke’s Health – The Woodlands expanded with the addition of Surgical Oncologists Pabel Ali Miah, D.O. (breast), Tianming Liu, MD (colorectal), and Salim Cheriyan, MD (urologic). Radiation Oncologist Ather A. Siddiqi, MD joined St. Luke’s Health – The Woodlands after practicing for 12 years in Texas. He described his new home as a “whole different ball game” in terms of the depth of collaboration with specialists at DLDCC.
“It’s a very integrated, holistic, synergistic approach,” Dr. Siddiqi spoke of DLDCC’s thoroughness in diagnosing and treating cancer. “The Tumor Board meets once a week with surgeons, medical, radiation oncology, pathology and radiology to discuss each patient, taking a multidisciplinary approach to offer the best possible individualized care.”
That in-depth collaboration allows DLDCC oncologists to offer patients treatments that are advancing at a rapid rate. “Today’s cancer care is very personalized,” Dr. Siddiqi explained. “There are a lot of different things we do now that we weren’t doing five years ago. With discoveries in the last decade, cancer patients are living a lot longer with chemotherapy, targeted therapy, immunotherapy, molecular testing. Furthermore, technological advances in radiation oncology allow many disease sites to be treated in five or ten treatments, rather than several weeks. With newer, cutting edge therapies, many patients are living years when previously they were told they would live only months.” Dr. Siddiqi says.
And yet, compassion and Human kindness remain a constant emphasis at St. Luke’s Health – The Woodlands. That includes listening, an important factor in this day and age when many patients do their own research and ask fairly detailed questions. St. Luke’s Health – The Woodlands physicians expect that and aim to put the patient at ease in the most comfortable environment possible as they embark on their cancer journey.
“We know how much anxiety a patient has when they are told that they have or might have cancer. The sooner we’re able to see them and start their workup, start their treatment, even if it’s not a medical emergency, it’s an emergency to that individual patient. And we take that very seriously,” Dr. Coscio said.
“At St. Luke’s Health – The Woodlands, we offer the perfect balance of an academic cancer center in a comforting local environment. We have access to the medical center in Houston, clinical trials, and referrals when needed. We have onsite surgeons, radiation, medical oncology, and support staff for most of the common cancers and treatments for cancer, yet we are of a size where everybody knows your name.”
