Leaving a Legacy of Support for Palliative Care Research

Nora JanjanNora A. Janjan, MD, MPSA, MBA, a former member of the Conquer Cancer Board of Directors and her late husband, Jack Calvin, worked with the foundation to create a bequest from their estate. Mr. Calvin lost his first wife to breast cancer, and Dr. Janjan, now retired, was a Professor of Radiation Oncology at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.

"Cancer has touched our lives, as it has for many other people. ASCO and Conquer Cancer do outstanding work on behalf of patients with cancer and the people who are trying to take care of them in a better way every day," said Dr. Janjan.

The Janjan and Calvin family donation will support research in the areas of palliative care and symptom control. Dr. Janjan noted that patients present with symptoms that lead to the discovery of their cancer and they sustain symptoms related to the treatment of their disease that limit their ability to receive therapy. "If we can further research in symptom control, we can cure more patients and comfort them, not just at the end of life, but throughout the course of treatment," she said.

Dr. Janjan believes advanced planning is important to ensure the direction of her family’s legacy. "We all make choices about how to use the resources that we earn and are given. We want what we've worked our lives for to go where we know it's going to be used properly. It's important to make sure that the resources that we are privileged enough to have will be used for good and go to organizations that we trust."

For more information on giving to Conquer Cancer, the ASCO Foundation, please contact Judith L. Spiegel at (571) 483-1459 or judith.spiegel@conquer.org.