Jefferson Medical College Awards Alumni Achievement Award to Fox Chase Cancer Center's Monica Morrow, M.D., F.A.C.S

PHILADELPHIA (October 20, 2006)-Monica Morrow, M.D., F.A.C.S,chairman of the surgical oncology department at Fox Chase Cancer Center, has received the Alumni Achievement Award from Jefferson Medical College alumni association. The award was presented to Morrow at the Jefferson Medical College Annual Alumni Banquet on September 29, 2006. Morrow graduated from Jefferson Medical College in 1976 as a member of its five-year accelerated medical program.

The award was established in 1964 by the Jefferson Medical College alumni association to honor graduates, who have brought honor and prestige to the school through their careers.

"Dr. Morrow was awarded Jefferson Medical College's most prestigious award because of her stellar clinical and research background and achievements in the study and treatment of breast cancer," said Thomas J. Nasca, M.D., M.A.C.P., dean of Jefferson Medical College.

Morrow joined Fox Chase's division of medical science as chairman of surgical oncology in August 2004, becoming one of few women across the nation to chair a surgery department.

Until her Fox Chase appointment, Morrow served as professor of surgery at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago and director of Northwestern Memorial Hospital's clinical breast programs, including the Lynn Sage Comprehensive Breast Center.

She received an inaugural Department of Defense Center of Excellence grant in 1996-one of only three breast cancer center grants the DOD awarded nationally-to focus on increasing access to modern multidisciplinary breast cancer care. In addition, Morrow was Northwestern's co-principal investigator for a National Cancer Institute-funded Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) in prevention, diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer.

Morrow was the first surgeon to serve on the National Cancer Policy Board of the Institute of Medicine, from 1999 to 2002. She is the surgical editor of the standard textbook for professionals, Diseases of the Breast, as well as an author of a book in the popular "Dummies" series called Breast Cancer for Dummies.

From 1999 to 2001, Morrow was director of the cancer department of the American College of Surgeons and executive director of the American Joint Committee on Cancer. She has served on the board of directors of the American Society of Clinical Oncology and currently is a member of the executive council of the Society of Surgical Oncology.

Morrow earned her undergraduate degree from Pennsylvania State University and received two of Penn State's most prestigious awards, having been named an Alumni Fellow of the Eberly College of Science and a Distinguished Alumnus of the University. She was commencement speaker for the College of Science in 2003.

Morrow served her residency in surgery at the Medical Center Hospital of Vermont in Burlington. After completing a two-year fellowship in surgical oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in 1983, she became assistant professor of surgery at the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center and director of the surgical oncology service at Kings County Hospital Medical Center in Brooklyn. In 1988, she moved to the University of Chicago as director of the multidisciplinary breast cancer team and associate professor of surgery until joining Northwesterns faculty in 1993.

Fox Chase Cancer Center was founded in 1904 in Philadelphia, Pa. as the nation's first cancer hospital. In 1974, Fox Chase became one of the first institutions designated as a National Cancer Institute Comprehensive Cancer Center. Fox Chase conducts basic, clinical, population and translational research; programs of prevention, detection and treatment of cancer; and community outreach. For more information about Fox Chase activities, visit the Center's web site at www.fccc.edu.