Like many people, Avishek Kumar, MD, scheduled some time away from the office this summer. However, his version of an “island getaway” was hardly the norm. Rather than jetting down to the Caribbean for a few days of sand, surf, and sun, the cancer specialist traveled 8,000 miles to the U.S. territory of Guam, where he was one of 147 military service members who provided care to the Pacific island’s residents.
“We saw more than 1,500 patients in the first week of August,” says Dr. Kumar, a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force Reserve and medical oncologist who practices in the Edison, NJ, offices of Regional Cancer Care Associates (RCCA), one of the nation’s largest networks of oncology specialists. He explains that Air Force Reserve and active-duty Air Force, Army, Navy, and Guam Air National Guard clinicians and support staff participated in the effort, known as the 2024 Guam Wellness Innovative Readiness Training.
For Dr. Kumar, who is board certified in internal medicine as well as in medical oncology, the week-long mission entailed a considerable amount of primary care, from performing physical exams and assessing chronic conditions to educating patients about cancer prevention. Other military clinicians provided dental care, offered eye examinations, and conducted cancer screenings, such as mammography and colonoscopy.
“It was a wonderful opportunity to serve the people of Guam and a great way for members of different service branches to hone our ability to work together in efficiently delivering a wide range of medical care,” said Dr. Kumar.
He explains that his physician parents endowed him with a love of medicine and of the doctor’s role in providing compassionate care and real hope to people facing serious illness. At the same time, however, repeated viewings of “Top Gun” – already a classic by the time he started watching it – imbued the young man with a fascination with flying and, particularly, military aviation.
Strongly drawn to two highly demanding professions, Dr. Kumar eschewed an “either/or” decision for an “and” approach.”
After graduating from Rutgers College, where he studied biology and archeology, Dr. Kumar took flying lessons at Morristown Airport whenever he was home during breaks from his studies at Saint George’s University School of Medicine. After earning his medical degree, Dr. Kumar embarked upon postgraduate training that encompassed not only an internal medicine residency at St. Michael’s Medical Center in Newark, a geriatric medicine fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania, and a hematology and oncology fellowship at the University of Maryland Greenebaum Cancer Center, but also flight surgeon school (Aerospace Medicine Primary) with the Air Force Reserve following his 2011 commissioning.
While his hematology and oncology fellowship focused on topics such as the molecular basis of cancer and the pharmacology of immunotherapies and targeted therapies, the instruction he received in the Air Force Reserve entailed becoming proficient not only in aerospace medicine but also in skills of a decidedly different sort. “I trained alongside pilots and other air crew in courses on water survival, escape and evasion, and, of course, flying,” he says.
His military career has taken Dr. Kumar to locations from Nellis Air Force Base in Las Vegas in support of Operation Red Flag, to Okinawa, where he worked with Air Force Pararescue Special Forces, to Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in southern Alaska.
Whereas much of Dr. Kumar’s work deals with patient-facing responsibilities and medical care, his years in the Air Force Reserve have provided numerous occasions to satisfy – as Tom Cruise’s “Top Gun” character phrased it – “the need for speed.” Dr. Kumar explains, “We have broken the sound barrier several times in F-16 and F-15 fighters.”
Although Dr. Kumar dedicates the equivalent of a few weeks a year to his duties as a flight surgeon/aerospace medicine specialist with the 482nd Fighter Wing, based in Homestead, Florida, the great majority of his time is devoted to caring for patients who come to RCCA’s Edison, NJ, office for treatment of solid tumors, cancers of the blood and blood-forming tissues, and benign hematologic conditions, such as anemia.
He practices in a newly renovated and state-of-the-art practice, located at 15 Main Street in Edison, NJ, with a highly trained team of oncology nurses, nurse practitioners and physician assistants, and board-certified physicians.
“Having grown up in New Jersey, first in Haworth, and later in Scotch Plains in Union County, it is a great honor to be providing cancer care here, not just in the strictly medical sense, but also in terms of having respect and compassion for each person,” Dr. Kumar says.
Dr. Kumar, who speaks English, Hindi, and medical Spanish, is affiliated with JFK Medical Center in Edison, NJ, and Rahway Medical Center in Rahway, NJ.
“Serving our country as a military flight surgeon is both exciting and rewarding,” he says, adding that he always feels a particular rapport with the many veterans he treats at RCCA’s Edison, NJ, offices. “At the same time, however, being an oncologist also is incredibly exciting today because our understanding of the causes and effective treatment of cancer is growing exponentially. As a result, the last few years have seen a dramatic expansion of the therapies we can offer people and our ability to achieve good outcomes, not only extending life but also preserving quality of life. To be able to provide cutting-edge, comprehensive care to people here in the community setting is an incredibly rewarding experience.”
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Avishek Kumar, MD, is one of more than 90 medical oncologists and hematologists who practice with RCCA at 26 locations across New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland, and the Washington, DC, area. RCCA’s cancer specialists see more than 26,000 new patients each year and provide care to more than 245,000 established patients, collaborating closely with those patients’ other physicians. RCCA physicians offer patients innovative therapies, including immunotherapies and targeted therapy, as well as access to approximately 300 clinical trials. In addition to serving patients who have solid tumors, blood-based cancers, and benign blood disorders, RCCA care centers also provide infusion services to people with a number of non-oncologic conditions—including multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease, asthma, iron-deficiency anemia, and rheumatoid arthritis—who take intravenously-administered medications.
To learn more about RCCA, call 844-928-0089 or visit RCCA.com
For more information or to schedule an appointment,
call 844-346-7222. You can also schedule an appointment by calling the RCCA location nearest you.
With care centers in New Jersey, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts and the Washington, D.C., area, thousands of patients each year have come to rely on the expertise, dedication and compassion of Regional Cancer Care Associates.
More than 80 medical oncologists and hematologists affiliated with Regional Cancer Care Associates (RCCA) – one of the nation’s largest networks of oncology specialists — are on the frontlines of the fight against cancer in New Jersey, providing care to well over 100,000 people each year in 19 community-based practices across the Garden State.
The American Cancer Society will host its 43rd annual Diamond Ball Gala on November 24, 2024, at the Westmount Country Club in Woodland Park, NJ.
Regional Cancer Care Associates is one of fewer than 200 medical practices in the country selected to participate in the Oncology Care Model (OCM); a recent Medicare initiative aimed at improving care coordination and access to and quality of care for Medicare beneficiaries undergoing chemotherapy treatment.
