Medical Oncology Service

About Us

Medical Oncology Service, National Cancer Institute

The Medical Oncology Service is part of the Office of the Clinical Director, Center for Cancer Research (CCR) at the National Cancer Institute (NCI).

Medical oncology staff and fellows support patients who are participating in NCI-CCR clinical protocols at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Center, located on the NIH campus in Bethesda, Maryland. The NIH Clinical Center is the nation’s largest hospital totally dedicated to clinical research.

Our mission focuses on:

Developing novel therapeutic research strategies for treating cancer and testing these strategies by conducting clinical research across a spectrum of diseases and mechanisms;
Providing outstanding clinical care to adult cancer patients enrolled in NCI-CCR research protocols, including in-patient and out-patient care services;
Training physician-scientists through the NIH Hematology Oncology Fellowship and the NCI Immunotherapy Fellowship in a laboratory-to-clinic translational research setting to develop their expertise in medical oncology research and to support their board certification by the American Board of Internal Medicine.

Other Training Opportunities

Additional training opportunities in medical oncology at NIH are highlighted below.

Senior Medical Students – To learn more about 4-week clinical rotations in medical oncology at the NIH Clinical Center, visit the Clinical Electives Program.
Residents – Elective rotations offer residents the opportunity to have direct experience in the care of patients enrolled in investigational protocols at the NIH Clinical Center. For more information, visit Elective Rotations for Residents and Clinical Fellows.

Clinical Trials at the NIH Clinical Center

The clinical trials conducted by the NCI-CCR on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) campus in Bethesda, Maryland represent the core of our clinical program. At the CCR, basic and clinical science are seamlessly integrated with a mission to reduce the burden of cancer through exploring, discovering, and the translating new approaches into compassionate and effective care for all cancer patients. CCR clinical studies are aimed at:

Answering critical questions about a particular disease or disease process
Identifying promising new therapeutic interventions that can then be confirmed in larger studies carried out across the country at participating NCI-support