SEATTLE — September 30, 2016 — Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA) announced that medical director Benjamin Greer, MD is retiring. SCCA has hired Jennie Robertson Crews, MD, MMM, FACP as his successor. Crews joins SCCA after serving as medical director of Cancer Services, PeaceHealth Northwest Network in Bellingham, Wash. since 2012.
“Seattle Cancer Care Alliance has 12 network partners across five states, thanks to the leadership of Dr. Ben Greer,” said Dr. Marc Stewart, medical director and vice president of SCCA. “His commitment to coalition-building and community partnerships has resulted in greater access to the latest diagnostic and treatment information for thousands of patients across the Pacific Northwest.”
Greer was named medical director of the Affiliate Network in 2004 and has been a leader within SCCA and its partner institutions – UW Medicine and Fred Hutch – since 1980. He championed several key initiatives during his time in Seattle, including: creation of the program that became the SCCA Affiliate Network, leading SCCA’s division of gynecologic oncology, and facilitating numerous national collaborations through leadership positions in the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), the Gynecologic Oncology Group (GOG), the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), and the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ABOG).
Greer expressed his gratitude for his time with SCCA. “I’m honored to have worked with an amazing team and devoted oversight committee,” said Greer. “SCCA will always be a part of my family.”
Greer and Crews will work together over the next few months to ensure a seamless leadership change, with Greer remaining as medical director until his retirement at the end of the year. Starting January 1, 2017 Crews will assume the title of medical director for Network and Research Integration at SCCA. She will also hold a faculty position at UW Medicine as a clinical associate, seeing patients in the Survivorship Clinic.
“Dr. Jennie Crews joins our team at an exciting time and we look forward to working with her and our community partners to continue to provide community-based physicians throughout the Pacific Northwest with access to trials and care at SCCA,” said Stewart.
Crews is president of the Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC). She has previously served as the Medical Director of the Marion L. Shepard Cancer Center in Washington, N.C., and held appointments as a Consulting Associate in the Department of Medicine, Division of Medical Oncology and Transplantation at Duke, and as an Affiliate Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at East Carolina University.
Crews received her BS degree in Biology with highest honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She earned her MD from Duke University and completed training in internal medicine and oncology at Duke, where she served as assistant chief resident. She is a Fellow in the American College of Physicians and is board certified in internal medicine and medical oncology.
“I’m thrilled to join Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and work with Affiliate Network members across the region,” said Crews. “SCCA has a strong reputation across the region, and across the nation, and I look forward to continuing to grow the program.”
The Affiliate Network program supports SCCA’s mission of advancing the standard of cancer care regionally and beyond. Affiliate members have access to consultations with SCCA experts about their patients’ diagnosis and treatment plan, leading-edge clinical research trials, and the latest advancements in the treatment of cancer. By providing community-based physicians and hospitals with access to the leading research teams and cancer specialists of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (Fred Hutch), Seattle Children’s and UW Medicine, the SCCA Network forges partnerships to work toward a common goal of elevating patient care.
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