While walking around the city of Memphis, Tennessee, you may come across a collection of large buildings with the name St Jude Children’s Research Hospital. St. Jude is at the forefront of research for treatments of childhood cancer. It’s welcoming to everyone no matter their race, gender, ethnicity, or nationality. They also treat any patient there for free. The hospital’s endowment pays for treatment, travel, food, and shelter for the child and their family. They can’t stop their mission (which was given by St. Jude’s founder) of making sure no children die from cancer. They also share all their research with hospitals all over the world. St. Jude won’t stop their mission to save children from cancer, and I won’t stop trying to help them.
St Jude is considered progressive for giving free treatment to anyone who needs it, but this is how it should have always been. Why is the medical field too often bankrupting people and their families for wanting to live? Our economy and medical field is often so focused on profits that they don’t care who they hurt. While these hospitals may not be letting people die from diseases, they cause poverty, which is a disease of its own. The poverty being caused by the medical field’s tunnel vision of profit can hurt the people they are trying to save. We need to hope that St. Jude is the future of all hospitals across America and the world. St. Jude is the future of hospitals, and they save children, which is one of the noblest causes. They don’t do it for the thanks. Instead, they do it for the greater good of the people. They not only save children from cancer, but they save the families from being put into debt from hospital bills. St. Jude saves children with funding provided by donations. By helping St. Jude you are helping our society focus on prioritizing health, not money.
Even though St. Jude is based in Memphis, the reach of their work is global. They share their research all over the world, and people from all over the world go to St. Jude to get treated. Its mission is recognized globally, and St. Jude represents the best of our society.
Craig Johnson, a Senior Specialist with the NextGen Team was a former patient of St. Jude. When he was fifteen, he was diagnosed with A.L.L. Leukemia. This led him to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. When he was in the hospital, he realized that when he grew up, he wanted to work for St. Jude. He was a little younger than the 16 year old I am now, when he had to go through a life changing experience that could have put his family in crippling debt. Thanks to St. Jude, he and his family were able to focus on what was most important, which was his health. This led him to having a St. Jude internship in 2013, which eventually inspired him to have the job that he has now. Johnson said his favorite part of working for St. Jude is “striving to increase the survival rate of the top six childhood cancers in the world. We’re striving to raise that percentage from 20% to 60%, by the year 2030.” Based on this, we can tell that the administrators and doctors at St. Jude, unlike those at most hospitals, care more about their patients than their paychecks. By helping the patients recover without their family ever having to pay a dime, they make sure more people survive, all without worrying about how to pay hospital bills.
The research that the doctors at St. Jude do not only helps them cure more cancer in more people, but they also share their research all over the world so that everyone has access to their cutting edge research. Every dollar is important in raising money for St. Jude, but raising money isn’t the only thing that is important — raising awareness regarding everything that they do is important.
You can help St. Jude with more than just donations. Participating in their many fundraisers, such as walks that help to raise money for St. Jude which are conducted in several cities, helps them to achieve their goal. High school students can join the St. Jude leadership society. If you raise over $3,000, you are invited to Memphis for a tour of the St. Jude campus. While most people who participate in the St. Jude leadership society are domestic to the United States, St. Jude’s reach is global. When I participated in the St. Jude leadership program, there was someone in part of my cohort who was from Honduras. St. Jude has helped so many lives over the 62 years since they were founded by Danny Thomas in 1962. The type of cancer that Craig had would have doomed him to a 4% survival rate in 1962. Now, he would have a 94% likelihood of living through cancer, which shows just how much St. Jude has changed lives.
At St. Jude they do everything they can for the children. By conducting more research, St. Jude is finding ways to treat cancer in more efficient ways. They help the children by letting those who are healthy enough be with their families while getting treatment. According to Craig Johnson, “We want them to be with their families and friends as much as possible, as much as their body can from a health perspective.” St. Jude isn’t just great at treating childhood cancer, but they make children happy in their darkest moments. This cause is especially important to me because when I was in middle school, one of my friends died from cancer. While she didn’t go to St. Jude for treatment, her death really affected me. While I can’t reverse what happened to my friend, I can honor her memory by making sure that no one has to go through what her friends and family went through.
As Danny Thomas, the founder of St. Jude, said, “No child should die in the dawn of life.” Children are our future, so we need to secure their future. While most people have been lucky enough to never need treatment from St. Jude, we need to remember the ones who do. St. Jude is saving thousands of families from heartbreak. They are saving our brothers, sisters, family, and friends from losing their life before they can accomplish all they were meant to accomplish. St. Jude’s journey has been one of transformation from one man’s idea to a current world leader in cancer research. Our future is dependent on the futures of our kids, and St. Jude is protecting those futures now and forever.
Even though St. Jude is based in Memphis, the reach of their work is global. They share their research all over the world, and people from all over the world go to St. Jude to get treated. Its mission is recognized globally, and St. Jude represents the best of our society.