Featured in the Media

A Mother and Son Get Through Cancer Together

Not long after her son began cancer treatment at CHOP for leukemia, Charlene Heard was diagnosed with breast cancer. Charlene and her son Myles supported each other while receiving treatment at the same time last year. Charlene completed her treatments with RadOnc in December 2022, and Myles completed his treatment with CHOP in April 2023. Read the full story about their treatment journey at the link below.

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

As part of their Breast Cancer Awareness Month coverage, Good Morning America is featuring patient Kate Korson as she undergoes radiation therapy treatment. Kate specifically traveled to Penn Medicine for her cancer care because her mother, Martha, was treated here with radiation therapy for rectal cancer 17 years ago. Martha is still doing well and has been by her daughter's side throughout her treatment. Kate's story is scheduled to air on Monday, October 2, 2023.

Josh Bryer

Josh (he/him/his) joins the department as a clinical research professional with nearly seven years’ experience in clinical research at Penn. He joined the Radiation Oncology team as a Research Project Manager in September 2023. Josh received his Bachelor of Arts in classical literatures and languages from Penn and is currently pursuing a pre-health post-baccalaureate. He has supported over 20 clinical trials, Phase 0 through IV, from study start-up to close out, in nephrology and dermatology. In Dermatology, Josh supported a first-in-human trial of a CAR T cell therapy for pemphigus vulgaris, a blistering autoimmune disease. This work put his mentor, Dr. Robert Micheletti, and him in close collaboration with Dr. David Porter and the Cell Transplant and Therapy team. He became increasingly interested in cancer therapeutics and working to support patients undergoing these complex treatments, and so was eager to join radiation oncology in this pursuit. Josh is passionate about empowering people with knowledge and helping others access high-quality healthcare and clinical trials while improving processes and solving complex problems. When not at work, you can find Josh scoping out trendy outdoor Philly eats, revisiting the works of Vergil, trying to keep up with the RuPaul’s Drag Race franchise, listening to anything but country music, and dreaming of his next visit to Greece. Contact him at Jbryer@pennmedicine.upenn.edu.

Jasmine L Crawley

Jasmine joins the department as a Patient Services Coordinator. Previously, she worked as an administrative assistant at Penn Presbyterian Cardiology. Jasmine has her high school diploma and in her spare time enjoys baking, interior design, and traveling. Contact her at jasmine.crawley@pennmedicine.upenn.edu.

Philomena Faia, MBA

Philomena joined our department last year last year as a Senior Financial Analyst. Prior to joining Penn, she spent time at PrincewaterhouseCoopers an auditor in the asset and wealth management industry. At PwC, Philomena serviced some of the largest mutual fund clients in the United States, as well as hospitals within the Philadelphia area. Philomena worked at Penn Mutual Life Insurance where she worked directly with the Director of Internal Controls to improve internal processes. Philomena has a MBA from Villanova University with a focus in strategic management and healthcare and a BS from St. Joseph's University with a major in accounting and business analytics. In RadOnc, Philomena helps us run the physician and APP compensation plans, HUP monthly close, Penn Virtua invoicing and reporting, and she owns the models for volume and for revenue. She oversees our accounts receivable and our transfer/IET reconciliation, and she prepares much ad-hoc financial analysis for management and leadership. In the coming year, she’ll be helping us to provide more financial reporting to practice and function leaders and to becoming our resident expert in patient revenue. Want to dig into anything else? Give Philomena a shout! Contact her at philomena.faia@pennmedicine.upenn.edu

Dominique Grant

Dominique joins the department as a RadOnc Scheduler. Previously, she worked at the RadOnc Front Desk. She is currently pursuing her degree in Health Care Management. In her spare time, Dominique enjoys going to the gym, being a mom, and reading. Contact her at Dominique.grant@pennmedicine.upenn.edu.

Sam Homayouni, MHA

Sam joins the department as Finance Manager. He previously worked in the Emergency Department, where he started during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic as a data analyst. Over the last three years, Sam was been a key resource for the ED, answering questions that informed decisions large and small—spanning quality initiatives, budgeting, operations, and benchmarking. He restructured the ED provider scorecards, which offer vital data in identifying opportunities to increase efficiency and quality of patient flow. He successfully managed the Provider Incentive Plan for over 100 physicians across five sites, in addition to the HUP Clinical Department incentive each year. Sam led the project and subsequent validation of the ED module for the PennDiver software and served as the subject matter expert thereafter. Sam has a BA in economics from Rutgers University, a BS in biology from Stockton University, and a MHA from the University of Central Florida. Sam will take over team leadership from Jamie Schuck, who was recently promoted to be director of finance for the Orthopedics Department.(We wish you well, Jamie! Thank you for your support through the transition.) Contact Sam at sam.homayouni@pennmedicine.upenn.edu.

Anthony Austin Kassaee

Austin joins the department as a Medical Physicist. Previously, he was a medical physics resident in the department. Austin has his Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from Pennsylvania State University and his Masters of Medical Physics from the University of Pennsylvania. In his spare time, Austin enjoys playing basketball & tennis, learning about philosphy, and hanging out with his girlfriend, friends, family & two cats - pumpkin and pepper. Contact Austin at Anthony.Kassaee@pennmedicine.upenn.edu.

Michilean Lewis

Michilean joins the department as a Patient Service Coordinator. Previously, she worked in environmental service for Crothall in Penn Medicine. Michilean graduated from Preparatory Charter School and in her spare time, enjoys bike riding, vacationing, and roller skating. Contact Michilean at Michilean.lewis@pennmedicine.upenn.edu.

John McGlade

John joins the department as a Medical Physicist at Chester County Hospital. Previously, he was a Medical Physicist at Lancaster General Hospital. John earned his MS in Medical Physics from the University of Pennsylvania. In his spare time, John enjoys skiing, swimming, and basketball. Contact John at john.mcglade@pennmedicine.upenn.edu.

Taelor Rivera

Taelor joins the department as a Dosimetrist Treatment Planner. Previously, she was a student at Thomas Jefferson University. In her spare time, Taelor enjoys watching hockey, painting, and traveling. Contact Taelor at taelor.rivera@pennmedicine.upenn.edu.

Kristen Rodriguez

Kristen joins the department as a Radiation Therapist. Previously, she worked at her family's bakery (Conshohocken Italian Bakery) as a retail store manager. Kristen graduated from Gwynedd Mercy University with her Bachelor's of Science in Radiation Therapy. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling, riding motorcycles, and spending time with her dogs. Contact Kristen at Kristen.Rodriguez@Pennmedicine.upenn.edu.

Allison Roselli

Allison joined the department as a Clinical Dietitian Specialist. Previously, she worked as the radiation oncology nutritionist at RWJ Barnabas Health in New Brunswick, NJ. She has a BA in Psychology from Rutgers and a MS in Human Nutrition from Drexel. She lived in Charleston, SC for a year while completing her dietetic internship at MUSC. In her spare time, she likes to read, cook and spend time with family and friends. Contact Allison at allison.roselli@pennmedicine.upenn.edu

Selisa N. Smith

Selisa joins the department as a Patient Services Coordinator. Previously, she worked as a placement coordinator at Albert Einstein Hospital. Selisa graduated from Mastbaum A.V.T.H.S, and in her free time enjoys reading, watching sports, and travelling. Contact Selisa at Selisa.Smith@pennmedicine.upenn.edu.

Snehal Somalwar

Snehal joins the department as a Clinical Research Coordinator C. She completed her medical degree from R. A. Podar Medical (Ayu) College and her MD from Sion Ayurved Mahavidyalaya, Mumbai, India, plus she completed her certification in clinical research from St. Xavier’s University. Clinical research is her passion. She has been working in clinical research field for a long time. She has worked in different countries like India, Canada and the USA. Before joining PENN Medicine she was working as a clinical research coordinator in the area of Lungs and auto immunity at McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada. Her hobbies include hiking, reading, travelling and trying out different cuisines. She loves baking cakes with her 8 year old son. Contact Snehal at Snehal.Somalwar@Pennmedicine.upenn.edu

Madeleine Stander

Maddie joins the department as a radiation therapist. Previously, she worked as an X-ray tech at CHOP and Temple University. She graduated from the radiaton therapy program at Washburn University and prior to that, she attended Bloomsburg University’s undergrad program in medical imaging. In her spare time, Maddie enjoys cooking and trying new recipes, traveling, hanging out with friends and family, and checking out new hiking trails / outdoor areas. Contact Maddie at madeleine.stander@pennmedicine.upenn.edu.

Chauntae Thompson

Chauntae joins the Finance Team as an Accounting Clerk. She first joined Penn Medicine in 2005 as Administrative Assistant to the former RadOnc Chair, Stephen Hahn. She has held many positions within the health system: Interventional Radiology as PSA, GynOnc as Surgical Coordinator, Penn Medicine at Radnor as Preregistration Specialist, and Penn Medicine Access Center as Patient Coordinator. In 2021, fate brought Chauntae back to RadOnc as New Patient Coordinator for the CNS team. After 17 years of working in patient care, she made a career change this year and accepted the role of Accounting Clerk, taking over for Xavier Franklin who was promoted to be an accountant in the Pathology Department. (Many sincere thanks to Xavier for lending support to us long after her departure!) It is a bittersweet transition, as she adores advocating for our patients and assisting our amazing clinicians, but Chauntae is excited that she will still be able to assist our clinicians in a different capacity and work closely with their administrative teams. On our accounting and finance team, she supports procurement activities by shepherding all purchase orders, invoice payments, and employee reimbursements. She also supports MDs and APPs by running their professional development funds, and she supports delegates and requestors in Chrome River and Lawson in processing disbursements correctly and swiftly. She’s always the first and friendly voice to answer any “how do I…” questions! Contact her at chauntae.thompson@pennmedicine.upenn.edu

Promotions

Anthony Carannante

Anthony Carannante has been promoted to Data Analytics Manager, replacing Shane Kelly who took a promotion with Jefferson. Anthony joined Penn in January 2022 as a data analyst. He earned a Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering, with minors in economics and chemistry, from Pitt. Prior to joining Penn, he worked as an automation engineer for pharmaceutical companies by programming their drug manufacturing equipment such as bioreactors.

Anthony is responsible for building key Tableau dashboards for the department, while also providing analytical insight for different types of financial, operational, and clinical problems. In the time he has been in Radiation Oncology, he has been a key contributor for numerous critical business decisions, most notably for Project Rising Phoenix, in which he built a decade-long model to project proton patient volumes to determine the viability of the project and the geographic spread of the volume. Anthony has built dashboards for clinical trials and nursing metrics, added novel visualizations like the volumes waterfall and inpatient timeline, and automated various time-intensive processes like HUP reconciliation and Network volumes integration. He is attending Stevens Institute of Technology this fall for a master’s degree in data science.

On a related note, Bobby George who works with the Clinical Research Unit, will be formally joining the Data Analytics team, where he has been helping out since Shane’s departure. Bobby is a clinical data analyst, and he’ll maintain a dotted-line relationship to Wei Xu, but his solid line will be to Anthony, and Bobby will move from the 4th floor of PCAM to the 2nd. Anthony will be posting his own replacement shortly, but please send along any referrals to him in the meantime!

TyZhay Scott

TyZhay has been promoted to senior accountant. TyZhay joined Penn Medicine in 2019, originally coming to our department four years ago as staff accountant. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Accounting from University of Pittsburgh-Johnstown, and he is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Cyber-Accounting from University of Maryland Global Campus. TyZhay took over running our monthly close process, including preparing invoices (for CHoP and our other network partners) and complex journal entries, allocating for physics coverage and distributed dosimetry, allocating the University bills through the inter-fund, and providing variance explanations to hospital and CPUP accounting. He also owns the budget models for faculty expenses, including salary, benefits, incentives, and malpractice, as well as all non-salary expenses. TyZhay recently completed a project to upgrade (and re-upgrade) our transfer process for physician collaboration, as well as an end-of-year project to analyze and address staffing variances. In addition to training all current members of the team and serving as the voice of history, he brings positivity and generosity to add he does! Contact him at Tyzhay.Scott@pennmedicine.upenn.edu.

Orientations and Trainings

RN Onboarding Day

August 28, 2023

Newly hired RNs across all locations came to PCAM to meet their fellow nursing teammates and hear from other disciplines within the department to learn about how we all work together to care for our patients.

Clinical Research Unit Bootcamp

August 9, 2023

The CRC Bootcamp was an all-day event that trained the CRCs in the CRU on various topics including Good Clinical Practice, CRC responsibilities and classifications, research billing review, and reportable events, ending with a fun game of Jeopardy. A special thank you to Drs. Michael LaRiviere and Michelle Iocolano for their presentation on “What is Radiation? / Types of Cancers,” and to Kate Barbour, ACC’s NCTN Program Manager, for her NCTN Orientation presentation. This bootcamp and all of the trainings were organized and presented by CRU members Alexis Giron Santos, Kelly Clark, Ching Lai, and Michell Kim. Thank you to Shalonda Clark for help organizing as well!