MUSC Hollings Cancer Center - North Charleston

Dr. Taylor Orellana is a gynecologic oncologist at Hollings Cancer Center. She grew up in Greer, South Carolina and attended Clemson University for her undergraduate studies in Health Science. She attended medical school at the Medical University of South Carolina. She then went on to complete her OB/GYN residency and Gynecologic Oncology fellowship at UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital in Pittsburgh, PA. Dr. Orellana provides comprehensive care for gynecologic pre-cancers, cancers, and complex benign conditions, including open surgery, minimally invasive surgery, and chemotherapy. Dr. Orellana's research interests include management of endometrial cancer, tumor molecular classification, and cost-effectiveness studies.

After completing fellowship training, Dr. Oleksandra Lupak was offered the opportunity to join the faculty of the Department of Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). As a faculty member at MUSC, her goal is to be actively engage with the residents, fellows, and medical students' education as well as actively participate in oncology research and patients' care. She is very enthusiastic about being able to teach and practice clinical medicine in a way that meaningfully contributes to the educational mission of the University. During her training at the Henry Ford Hospital, she participated in multiple clinical research and QI projects. Dr. Lupak delivered multiple lectures to the trainees including grand rounds and she is committed to further develop her professional skills at MUSC. Dr. Lupak's ultimate purpose as a clinician and educator has been to develop as intimate and useful understanding as she might of the nature of medical education, so that she may continuously and meaningfully contribute to the improvement of this fundamentally important professional process. Where possible, Dr. Lupak looks for opportunities to extend her educational activities into an interdisciplinary realm beyond both her own department. Her teaching emphasis therefore is more upon the methods of clinical problem solving and the way in which we pursue solutions, than upon the specific nature of a defined set of problems.

Dr. Mariam Alexander is a physician in the Hematology/Oncology division. Her clinical and research interests are in solid tumor biology, with a special focus on lung cancer and targeted therapies. Her mission is to improve access to state of the art, personalized care for cancer patients and support them through their challenging diagnoses.She earned her Ph.D. in molecular biology and genetics at the University of Toronto, Canada. Her training in hematology and oncology was done at the Montefiore Medical Center in NYC. Prior to that, she did her medical training at Saba University School of Medicine and completed her internal medicine residency at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, NY.

Benjamin Djulbegovic is a Professor of Medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, where he serves as a section Chief of Benign Hematology and Director of the Hematology Stewardship Program. His primary academic and research interest lies in attempts to measure and optimize clinical research and practice of medicine by understanding the nature of medical evidence and decision-making. To this effect, his work aims to close the translational research circle by integrating methods and techniques across evidence-based medicine (EBM), predictive analytics, health outcome research, and decision sciences with the goals of reducing overuse, underuse, and misuse of delivery of health services to improve patients' health outcomes. Dr. Djulbegovic has systematically applied the science of EBM and decision analysis to the entire fields of hematology and oncology that, resulted in two books; the book on "Reasoning and decision-making in hematology" was listed as one of the best books by J Natl Cancer Inst and the book "Decision Making in Oncology. Evidence-based management" was assessed as "one of the first and best attempts to apply an evidence-based approach to the practice of medical oncology." As of April 2022, he has published over 400 papers in peer-review journals, 196 abstracts, and numerous book chapters. He also received numerous awards for his work, published in major scientific and medical journals, including Nature, Lancet, JAMA, New England Journal of Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine, BMJ, etc. He has also widely taught these subjects. During the last 25 years, Dr. Djulbegovic has received continuous external funding from federal and private entities. He was also selected in Newsweek's list of Top Cancer Doctors and, since 2011 continuously been selected among 1% of top US doctors by the US News \& World Report in the field of hematology. His current h-index is 72, and he has been regularly included in the top 1% cited scientists worldwide.

Dr. Paul O'Brien is a medical oncologist with special interests in cancers of the head and neck and also gastrointestinal malignancies. He has seven half-day clinics per week at the Hollings Cancer Center. He is active in the development of clinical trials and also serves as the inpatient attending on the medical oncology service three months per year. Dr. O'Brien is developing a curriculum for the residents and medical students during their rotations in medical oncology.