Today’s Jay Fund Hero – Dr. Peri Kamalaker
Compassionate, kind and caring are just a few of the adjectives used to describe Dr. Peri Kamalakar or “Dr. Kam” as he is more commonly known around the hospitals of Barnabas Health, New Jersey’s largest integrated health care delivery system.
Dr. Kam is Director of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology for Barnabas Health and Director of The Valerie Fund Children’s Center at all three sites of Barnabas Health, which includes the site at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center where he cares for many Jay Fund families who have come to know and love him since he joined the staff there in 1978.
Over the years, Dr. Kam has seen and been a part of many improvements in cancer treatment for children and knows it is a great success story that more children are surviving cancer each day. Additionally, he feels it important to note that more than 90 percent of NJ children with cancer are being treated closer to home where they are surrounded by the support of family and friends, which only helps in their battle against cancer.
Part of what makes Dr. Kam such a special physician is his guiding principal of taking responsibility to do whatever he attempts to the very best of his ability. Undoubtedly, Dr. Kam is a highly skilled and knowledgeable medical doctor, but it is his belief that “caring for seriously ill children and their families is 100 percent humanistic and another 100 percent medical; one without the other amounts to nothing” that sets him apart makes him our Jay Fund Hero for today.
Thank you, Dr. Kamalakar, for your dedication and commitment to help families tackle childhood cancer!
Donate to the Jay Fund in honor of Dr. Kam and the countless parents and patients he’s helped through his work! Every dollar makes a difference, when you have a child with cancer.