About Us

At Columbia University/NewYork-Presbyterian, I am leading the effort to bring the latest advances in cancer therapy to northern Manhattan. The Columbia University Irving Medical Center has an amazing depth of basic science with exceptional clinicians who can successfully translate preclinical discoveries into cancer medicine. My goal is to ensure that patients who come to Columbia receive compassionate, state of the art medical care by the best oncologists in the field.

The Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center is unique among Cancer Centers in NY, if not through the country. First, it is an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center. This means that it has been reviewed by a group of peers selected by the National Cancer Institute and it has passed a series of assessments placing it among the best in the country, providing it NCI designation status. In addition, we are called a “Comprehensive” Cancer Center. This attests to the depth and breadth of our cancer program serving a community that extends from Manhattan out to New Jersey and Westchester County. In New York State, the only other cancer centers who have achieved this “Comprehensive” cancer status are MSKCC in New York City and Roswell Park in Buffalo. This places the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center in a very elite group.

We now stand on the brink of amazing advances in cancer therapy at Columbia. Our clinical research programs in immunotherapy and personalized medicine are offering new opportunities to our cancer patients. Together, we have the ability to transform the field of cancer medicine. I am excited to continue to lead this effort and to ensure that Columbia maintains its leadership role in cancer therapy. Our goal is to provide a level of compassionate care that is not available anywhere else in the New York tri-state area, as well as the country.

Dawn Hershman, MD, MS, FASCO
Interim Chief, Division Hematology/Oncology