What Is The Role Of A Hematologist?

Dr. Rosen describes the responsibilities reserved for a hematologist.

Dr. Rosen:
Hematologist focuses on blood disorders, both what we refer to as benign, though these may be serious illnesses, but they’re benign in the sense that they’re not cancerous processes, and those that are true malignancies; cancers that can both affect quality of life and also shorten life. And the spectrum of cancers that are considered within the blood disorders are leukemia, both acute and chronic leukemia. So the acute are very rapidly progressive; the chronic leukemia is evolved over many years.

Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, which is a spectrum of many different types of blood cancers, Hodgkin’s disease, which is less common, highly curable, but falls into the spectrum of lymphoma, and then a disease called multiple myeloma which, unfortunately, cannot be cured at the present time, though we’ve had a dramatic impact in prolonging life.

About Dr. Steven Rosen, M.D., F.A.C.P:
Steven Rosen, M.D., F.A.C.P., is Genevieve Teuton Professor of Medicine, at the Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University and Director of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University and Director of Cancer Programs at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Following his graduation with distinction from Northwestern University Medical School's Six-Year Honors Program in 1976, Dr. Rosen completed his residency in Internal Medicine at Northwestern and a fellowship in Medical Oncology at the National Cancer Institute. Dr. Rosen's laboratory research focuses on experimental therapeutics and hematologic malignancies.

Visit Dr. Rosen at Northwestern Memorial Hospital