St. Jude donations fund clinical trials that make strides in childhood cancer treatments

DENVER ( KDVR ) — The St. Jude Dream Home Giveaway is officially underway. With each $100 ticket sold, viewers like you are helping to raise $2.5 million towards St. Jude’s mission this year.

FOX31’s Nicole Fierro took a trip to the St. Jude campus in Tennessee to learn about the impacts these donations make.

“We have a very unique opportunity here. Everyone that works at this hospital has one central mission to improve the care of patients with catastrophic diseases,” Dr. Jessica Gartrell said.

As a physician-scientist, Gartrell quickly saw the opportunities St. Jude offered when she was a medical school student following a physician for her rotation.

“There was a patient, she had a really high-risk, solid tumor,” Gartrell said. “Talking with the physician about the different treatment options, they were thinking about clinical trials at that time and talking about what they were doing to improve her care and her chances.”

The patient was a 10-year-old girl.

“At that time, I realized that was something I wanted to be a part of and knew that this was a great place to do it,” Gartrell said. “We have world experts in almost every disease type.”

Almost 10 years later on that same campus, Gartrell works with patients and scientists with a focus on high-risk liver tumors and sarcomas.

“I take care of patients with high-risk, solid tumors,” Gartrell said. “I tell them, ‘This is going to be hard. We’re going to do a lot of hard things.’ But everything I can do to make you feel like a kid and make every day the best it can be, that’s the favorite part of my job.”

She said her second favorite part is collaborating with scientists in the lab and talking about what’s been discovered in the clinical trials and how can they translate that and move it forward to improve the care of her patients.

“I know every patient that walks through my doors, I’m not only doing something to help them but hopefully help other kids like them in the future. So, it’s great,” Gartrell said.

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