TD's Adventist Health to welcome new Radiation Oncology Director in September
By Tom Peterson
The Dalles, Ore., Aug. 4. 2023 - Adventist Health Columbia Gorge has hired Dr. Winnifred Wong as the MCMC Radiation Oncology Director and she is set to start in September, according to Adventist’s Travis Dray.
From Wong’s Linkedin site.
Wong of Fairfield, Calif., posted the following on her LinkedIn recently.
“Excited to announce that I will be starting a new job in September as the Radiation Oncology Clinic Director at Mid Columbia Medical Center in The Dalles, OR along the Columbia River Gorge! Great opportunities for growth, great people, and I knew it was the right fit when I met with the C-suite during my on site interview and the first thing the hospital CEO said when we sat down was, “What do you want to do here, and how can we help?” See you soon in OR!:)”
Wong was recently the Director, Joint Radiation Oncology Clinic at David Grant Medical Center at Travis Air Force Base in Fairfield.
Radiation therapy uses carefully targeted and regulated doses of high-energy radiation to kill cancer cells. Radiation causes some cancer cells to die immediately after treatment, but most die or become incapacitated as a result of the radiation-induced damage to the cancer cell's chromosomes and DNA.
Dr. Keith Steltzer
Dray, who is the director of business development at the MCMC site, said Dr. Keith Stelzer “ who has been in the position for 22 years and carried the program to where it is today, will be passing the baton” to Wong.
MCMC had cut immunotherapy and chemotherapy cancer treatments at the sight back in February due to costs and having enough staff, however, Dray said those treatments were added back in April with a partnership with the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute.
Wong’s hire comes just 64 days after Adventist Health purchased MCMC with a commitment of $100 million toward improvements over a 10-year period.
Dray also pointed out that the MCMC campus now has a Varian TrueBeam radiotherapy system built to treat cancer. “It has the ability to focus on super small cancer targets and can be tailored to the specific cancer target site.”
He said the benefit is that cancer can be treated faster and patients get more time in between therapy. More than $2 million was raised by the Mid-Columbia Medical Center Foundation to purchase it.
“Dr. Stelzer was a key part of getting this technology and providing treatment to the first patient,” Dray said. “Dr. Wong can take it from there. She is stepping into a great opportunity and you couple that with her experience and passion and you have a strong recipe for success.”
Dray pointed to the addition of a total of 22 staff in the last six months including 11 primary care physicians and 11 specialists. He also said Adventist was behind the purchase of 3 new electrocardiogram machines, noting Adventist Health System is making good on its promise to reinvest in the community. He said both Family Medicine and Internal Medicine were accepting new patients.
