Funding to Boost Cancer Care in Goshen
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowIU Health Goshen Hospital has received $400,000 to support its cancer care center. The bulk of the funding is from the estate of Jean and Norval Poyser and will help build an on-site research department and expand screening efforts. December 19, 2013
News Release
GOSHEN, Ind. – The IU Health Goshen Center for Cancer Care is the beneficiary of a $391,000 bequest from the estate of the late Jean and Norval D. Poyser. An additional $9,000 was contributed by the Goshen Hospital and Healthcare Foundation. The funding is designated for expanding cancer research efforts and enhancing programming.
The Poysers were lifelong residents of Middlebury, Ind., and graduates of Middlebury High School. Married for 56 years until Jean's death from cancer in 2001, the couple worked together on their farm and were well-known throughout the community as kind, quiet, hardworking, and generous people. Norval was a leader in the community, serving as an officer on numerous boards, including First State Bank, the Middlebury Co-op Creamery, and the Elkhart County Farm Bureau Co-op. He was also an avid woodworker, and gifted friends with clocks, furniture and picture frames. Norval died in April 2011 at the age of 92, and his desire to help IU Health Goshen Center for Cancer Care fund clinical research became clear.
“We are humbled by the confidence in our organization displayed by the Poyser Family's gift. It will allow us to enhance our capabilities in some very important ways,” says Susan Franger, vice president of cancer services for IU Health Goshen.
Specifically, the funds will be dedicated to three major priorities: 1) construction of the “Poyser Cancer Research Department” within the hospital; 2) support of dedicated research; and 3) expanded cancer screenings in the communities IUHG serves.
The Poyser Cancer Research Department
The IUHG Center for Cancer Care's research program has grown dramatically and continues to become more sophisticated. This new and expanded space will allow the Center for Cancer Care to continue to increase the number of all patients in the Center entered into clinical trials.
Support of dedicated research
This research is coordinated between IU Health Goshen Center for Cancer Care and The Harper Cancer Research Institute (IU School of Medicine and University of Notre Dame partnership). Current research is specific to tissue studies and focuses on the following cancers: breast, colorectal and pancreatic, leukemia/lymphoma/myeloma, lung, melanoma, oral and esophageal, ovarian and prostate.
Expanded cancer screenings
Additional funding will allow IU Health Goshen Center for Cancer Care to support cancer screening outreach in various communities in an evidence-based way, and by reaching out to un- and under-insured individuals whose resources may keep them from the care they need.
“Our portfolio of clinical trials is one of the most sophisticated in the state, as we support research in most major cancers,” adds Franger. “This gift allows us to continue and enhance our efforts to find new and better ways to fight and defeat cancer.”
Source: Indiana University Health Hospital Goshen