Dr. Joanne M. Quillen

I am passionate about educating and guiding pediatric oncology survivors to be knowledgeable about their health. In order to achieve this, I received my master’s in nursing from University of Pennsylvania Graduate Nursing Program, with a focus in pediatric oncology. This was the first program in the country with a focus in pediatric oncology. I am from the Wilmington area, and from a large family (one of eight). As a child, two of my sisters were diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. This had a big impact on me, watching them go through treatment. At the time of their treatment, there were no central lines/Zofran for nausea. It was a very different time and hard to watch. I became a nurse and worked with Dr. Rita Meek in her office. Dr. Meek was the first pediatric oncologist to arrive in Wilmington. Later in life, my older sister developed breast cancer and heart failure, which was a direct result of her past treatment. At the time, people were unfamiliar with these side effects. This led me to pursue my master’s at the University of Pennsylvania and develop the first survivorship program in Wilmington. The goal of the program is to help survivors live healthy lives and transition to adulthood. My passion is educating survivors of cancer. We do this in our clinic on a daily basis.  I’ve also conducted several research studies in the survivorship clinic, assessing levels of knowledge about the disease and making the transition to adulthood/learning. The three studies resulted in journal publications. I am a faculty advisor for the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate Nursing Program oncology track, and am passionate about helping educate nurses to be excellent and to advocate for our patients. Our psychology colleagues join us in the survivorship clinic to help with assessing learning, and providing school support and overall wellness. We also work closely with cardiology. We developed a wellness approach to protecting the heart after exposure to cancer treatment. We also are working with the cardiology staff to evaluate the usefulness of exercise stress tests to assess heart damage, sooner rather than later.

Dr. Quillen is highly rated in 3 conditions, according to our data. Her clinical expertise encompasses Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL), Hepatoblastoma, Medulloblastoma, and Hereditary Neuroblastoma.

Dr. Quillen is board certified in American Nurses Credentialing Center. She is actively involved in clinical research, co-authoring 4 peer reviewed articles. Dr. Quillen is currently accepting new patients.