Cancer and Blood Diseases Center

Family-centered care

Here at Dana-Farber/Children's Hospital Cancer Center, we understand that a cancer or blood disease diagnosis hugely affects your entire family, and that it affects each family in a different way.

From your very first visit, you’ll find that our team is committed to supporting all of your family’s physical and psychosocial needs. To provide continuity, your child will be assigned a primary team led by a pediatric oncologist (cancer specialist) or hematologist (blood disease specialist), who is a senior doctor. Other caregivers you’ll see regularly include a pediatric oncology fellow (a doctor training to become a cancer or blood disease specialist) or a nurse practitioner, an inpatient nurse, an outpatient nurse and a psychosocial clinician.

In addition to doctors and nurses, many other members of our team will support your family. Clinic facilitators, a resource specialist, Child Life specialists and other knowledgeable staff are available to help your family handle any practical concerns you may encounter, from finding housing to getting support about financial matters.

Special care areas, designed for kids, teens and their families

All of our care areas were designed to make your child as comfortable as possible. We have three inpatient units at Children’s Hospital Boston.

• Every room includes a bed for a parent, so children staying overnight never have to be alone.
• The inpatient unit also has family lounges, activity rooms, laundry facilities and a special resource room filled with educational and fun activities.
• You and your child also have access to all of the services Children’s offers.

Dana-Farber's Jimmy Fund Clinic is where children with cancer, or those undergoing stem cell transplantation, receive outpatient care.

• Our reception area has separate waiting areas for young children and teens, plus a play area and an aquarium.
• The Jimmy Fund Clinic has several private consultation rooms, where you can wait comfortably during initial visits and second opinions.
• Just outside the clinic is the Blum resource room, which has activities for your child and educational resources for the entire family.

Patients with blood diseases have their outpatient appointments at Children’s. Because you may need frequent appointments, you can also schedule appointments with our pediatric blood disease specialists close to home at our Waltham, Lexington and South Shore sites.