Message from the Chair
Welcome to the MUSC Department of Radiation Medicine. I am pleased to welcome you to the Department of Radiation Medicine and introduce you to our wonderful team. Our department has a three-fold mission: 1. To provide the best possible care to our patients, 2. To train and educate medical students, future radiation oncologists, and people training to be radiation therapists, and 3. To perform ground-breaking research to transform the standard of care for future patients. Our team is highly successful in all three of these endeavors.
First, our department is dedicated to delivering state-of-the-art radiotherapy to the people of South Carolina and the surrounding areas. Every member of our team is devoted to providing the best possible service and highest quality care. We work hard to make sure we take very good care of you and your family.
We are part of a multidisciplinary approach to cancer care. Our partnership with MUSC Health and our NCI-designated Hollings Cancer Center allows us to provide the best treatment recommendations to most effectively manage your or your family member’s health care. We have 11 different tumor/site-specific Tumor Boards, where team members from all medical specialties that diagnose and treat cancer meet to discuss your case. Our large number of site-specific Tumor Boards means that every member of each of these groups is a specialist in the particular type of cancer you are dealing with. This group reviews your case collaboratively and provides recommendations for the best way to manage your care.
The Department of Radiation Medicine is made up of many wonderful people. We have Attending doctors who head up our teams fighting specific types of cancer. Each of our attending doctors has a few types of cancers they focus on so that they can provide the highest level of service and specialized knowledge of those types of cancers.
Our Radiation Medicine clinics are located in the Hollings Cancer Center, and the adjacent MUSC Main Hospital building in downtown Charleston, on the peninsula, as well as in Mount Pleasant - which is convenient to our population north of the Cooper River. All of our facilities boast state-of-the-art equipment and highly trained and qualified physicians and staff.
Our educational programs include formal training for Radiation Medicine Residents. These doctors are undergoing a 5-year long journey after medical school to learn how to become independent Radiation Oncologists. They are the brightest of the bright and best of the best, and we are thrilled to have our Residents in our department fueling the intellectual curiosity of our team and keeping our Attending physicians at the top of their game. We also help with the education of medical students at MUSC College of Medicine about cancer and the role of radiotherapy in its management. In addition, with our affiliation with Armstrong Atlantic State University, we also train future radiation therapists – the people who have the high level of skill and training in order to operate our high-tech radiotherapy machines here at MUSC and across the nation.
Our research efforts are led by Tim Lautenschlaeger, M.D. The Lautenschlaeger Lab works to measure and predict responses to radiation therapy in solid tumors, with the goal of developing biomarker-guided, personalized radiation prescriptions and follow-up care. Circulating nucleic acid biomarkers are uniquely suitable for cancer detection, therapy response, and — most significantly — follow-up monitoring. Biomarker-guided follow-up strategies could help reduce outcome disparities linked to barriers in accessing specialized cancer care. Additionally, many of our faculty members have collaborated with industry partners to introduce new technologies in the management of cancer in South Carolina and around the world.
My mentor, former Chair of our department Dr. J. “Buddy” Jenrette, was always exclaiming our group as the “best team anywhere.” It is my honor and challenge to continue to lead our best team in Dr. Jenrette’s tradition of excellence. We invite you to dig deeper into our department and see what we have to offer. The rest of our website will provide more information on our three-fold mission of excellence in clinical care, education, and research. Don’t hesitate to reach out to learn more. Welcome.
