Drew Moghanaki, Professor, Chief of Thoracic Oncology at the Department of Radiation Oncology and Stanley Iezman and Nancy Stark Endowed Chair in Thoracic Radiation Oncology Research at David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and Chief Medical Officer of Respirati, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“In 2017, the VA Office of Rural Health, in partnership with the Bristol Myers Squibb Foundation (tirelessly supported by Catharine Grimes, MBA), launched the VA Partnership to increase Access to Lung Screening (VA-PALS).
With a budget over $10M, we screened >30,000 Veterans and demonstrated the ability of VA to build an enterprise-wide early detection program which led to a Congressional appropriation of $100M in FY21 leading to the formation of the VA Lung Precision Oncology Program and establishment of the VA National Center for Lung Cancer Screening that has evaluated more than 2,000,000 Veterans for the eligibility across more than 120 VA medical centers.
Among the various initiatives we worked on during the VA-PALS project (2017-2022), one of the most challenging was establishing a fleet of VA Lung Buses to expand outreach to rural Veterans nationwide.
I’m now pleased to report that multiple VA medical centers have launched mobile lung screening programs, including one in Tennessee, where this picture was taken today during the Appalachian Veterans Fair at the Bristol Motor Speedway.
This was made possible by the tireless efforts of the VA-PALS team in Nashville, led by Drs. Jennifer Lewis and Lucy Spalluto, with mentorship from Dr. Fred Hendler and many others, all guided by the spirit of the late Dr. Pierre Massion, who initially introduced us to Jen and Lucy back in 2017.
It deserves mention that this milestone was made possible thanks to the generosity of Dr. Derek Raghavan and Melissa Wheeler, who pioneered the first-ever Lung Bus at the Levine Cancer Institute in Charlotte, NC (also sponsored by the BMS Foundation), and showed us the way to make this a reality for our Veterans.
Fun fact: Dr. Derek Raghavan, a former Director of the Cleveland Clinic Cancer Center, is now an attending physician at the VA.”
Other articles featuring Drew Moghanaki on OncoDaily.