A Toast to Hope and Progress at the 10th Annual Focus on Melanoma Conference

Christine Wilson, cancer survivor, shares her experiences from the Abramson Cancer Center’s 2013- Focus Melanoma and CAN Prevent Skin Cancer Conferences. In this blog, she discusses advances in melanoma treatment and research.

Lynn Schuchter, MD, had to delay her presentation, ”10 Years, Reflections on the Journey,” while The Broad Street Line, a men’s a cappella group from Temple University, began serenading the conference chair and program leader for Penn’s Melanoma Program with their version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow.



No song, and no moment, could have better captured the tone, and the content of the May 17th conference, which brought together over 350 patients and family members to hear Dr. Schuchter and her colleagues discuss the extraordinary progress that has been made against melanoma in the last few years.

Schuchter used the familiar computer keyboard to frame her presentation:

• The Home Key—Because Penn is a home to its patients and to the people who care for them.
• The Shift Key—To denote the “seismic change” in how melanoma is treated, especially the shift away from one treatment fits all approach to one that is far more individualized and targeted.
• The Delete Key—To delete cancer, and melanoma
• The ALT Key—Dr. Schuchter called for better, more clear cut answers to the questions that patients ask about how they can incorporate alternative therapies and help themselves to stay healthy.
• The End—To acknowledge that melanoma still takes an enormous toll, and that many people still lose their battle to this disease. Schuchter stressed that, while pain remains part of the journey, that she and the Penn staff view taking care of melanoma patients as “an enormous privilege.”
• The Asterisk—For the many unexpected things, “the miracles that happen every day,” the people who come to Penn with advanced disease and are cancer free today.
• The “F” Keys—Because as Dr. Schuchter said, “I have no idea what these are about, and in melanoma, we have a lot of important clues, but we don’t yet know what they mean.”
• The Power Button—Because “we all have so much more power to control this disease.”
• The Hope Button—A new key, for the hope that everyone shares.

Dr. Schuchter concluded her presentation by showing the video Fire with Fire, highlighting the remarkable new approach to immunotherapy that Penn has pioneered with leukemia patients, and will soon begin using in clinical trials for melanoma patients.

Watch the Fire with Fire video below.


The conference ended with a standing ovation for Dr. Schuchter, the Penn melanoma team and the patients and caregivers who were there, along with a special “toast” of sparkling cider and a 10th year anniversary cake.