Choosing a Medical Center
There are many excellent medical centers in the United States, but how do you know where to look? What makes one medical center better than another? Here are some steps and criteria to help guide you in choosing the right medical center.
Decide what type of medical center you'd like
- Academic Medical Centers. Academic Medical Centers partner with teaching institutions to provide clinical care, education, and research. There are about 120 in the United States. A few examples include Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, and University of California San Francisco Medical Center.
- Community hospitals. Non-teaching hospitals serving local communities are known as community hospitals. They can be found in rural or urban settings and provide general care and specialized services, like cancer treatment, to their communities.
- National Cancer Institute-Designated Cancer Centers. These 71 medical centers meet rigorous standards for state-of-the-art research focused on developing new and better approaches to preventing, diagnosing, and treating cancer. Most are affiliated with university medical centers.
If you live in a rural area, your choice of providers may be more limited. Check out this short, one-minute video clip of Anand Patel, MD, from the University of Chicago Medicine advising leukemia patients from rural communities on when they should consider traveling outside their area for care.
Make a list of medical centers
The doctor who identified your cancer is the first person you should ask for a list of medical centers they recommend. Try to get two or three referrals from this doctor.
There are several websites available that may help you find medical centers and get more information on their specialties, treatments offered, and more. Here are some that might be helpful to you.
- Association of American Cancer Institutes: Search for member medical centers by state.
- Association of Community Cancer Centers: View a list of cancer programs by state and medical center.
- Children's Oncology Group: Search medical centers with expertise in treating children and teens with cancer.
- National Cancer Institute: Search National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer centers across the United States.
- National Marrow Donor Program: Search a directory of transplant centers across the United States.
When searching for a leukemia medical center, don't be afraid to look outside of your area and state. They may be closer than you think and could offer expertise or convenience that medical centers in your immediate area do not.
Choose the right medical center for you
Once you have a list of potential medical centers, here are some things to consider to help narrow down your list.
- How much experience do they have treating your type of leukemia? How effective has the medical center been with those leukemia treatments?
- How close is it to your home or office? If it's not close, does it have a place for you and your family to stay? Is it close to airports and hotels?
- What is the quality of the hospital?
- Will you have access to social workers, nutritionists, and other support services?
- Does the medical center offer clinical trials?
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