Stony Brook University Cancer Center hosted a Battle of the Bands event on September 17 and raised over $5,600 to help fund programs for Stony Brook Cancer Center’s Bone Marrow Transplant Unit.

Five bands comprised of healthcare professionals from four Suffolk County Hospitals – including, Eastern Long Island Hospital, Northport VA Medical Center, Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center and Stony Brook Medicine — traded in their stethoscopes for microphones, bass guitars, and drums and battled it out, to compete for the title of ‘Docs Who Rock.’

Guests and performers on stage.

“It means so much to the patients, because they’re in the hospital the longest prepping for several weeks before their bone marrow transplant and it gets boring just being in a hospital room. We try to do everything from art therapy to music therapy and we want to provide more so these funds will help,” said Jeanine Carlson, RN, Nursing Supervisor, Stony Brook University Hospital, Bone Marrow Transplant Unit.

The bands performed for nearly 375 people at the 89 North Music Venue in downtown Patchogue. WBAB radio host Fingers emceed and judged the event and food was donated by local area restaurants.

Grey Matters and Prognified were two Stony Brook bands that competed in the event. Grey Matters, a group consisting of a doctor and medical personnel from Stony Brook Medicine, were crowned the winner of the evening and walked away with the guitar trophy, which will be displayed in their hospital for a year.

Read more: https://www.facebook.com/pg/stonybrookmedicine/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1434457089943522

Stony Brook University’s Project Sunshine Chapter received more than 500 children’s DVDs from generous donors around the campus.

The DVDs were collected at campus dining locations throughout the month of November and given out to patients at Stony Brook Children’s hospital during the holidays.

Project Sunshine at Stony Brook University

An international organization, Project Sunshine empowers a dynamic and dedicated corps of over 10,000 volunteers to bring programming  – recreational (arts), educational (tutoring and mentoring) and social service (HIV and nutritional counseling) –  to over 60,000 children facing medical challenges and their families in 100 major cities across the United States and in five international satellite sites: Canada, China, Israel, Kenya and Puerto Rico.

The Stony Brook University Chapter works in close collaboration with the Child-Life Department at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital. Volunteers selflessly donate their time to create program materials and deliver programs.

The DVD drive was a collaboration between Project Sunshine and the Faculty Student Association (FSA). In addition to this effort, the collaboration’s projects throughout the year included making craft kits at the Sending Sunshine event and a Toy Drive to brighten the life of a child in need during the holiday season.

Check out a  video of the DVD drive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtHTO7bPCLU

As a way to outflank the carbon footprint of air travel and give meaning to their journey, doctoral students J. Caity Swanson and David Rodriguez biked hundreds of miles to Detroit, Michigan to attend the 12^th biennial conference for the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE).

Each expects to discover something about what type of impact travel has on perspective. The conference is the major international conference for interdisciplinary work in the humanities and environmental studies.

Doctoral students David Rodriguez and J. Caity Swanson set off for Detroit.

For Rodriguez, the inspiration to bike to the event stemmed from complications he experienced with arrangements traveling to the 2015 conference Moscow, Idaho.

Swanson said she views the unconventional travel mode as research into how slowing down travel and making it effortful can change the experience of attending a conference.

Rodriguez received the Stony Brook Graduate Student Organization’s “Distinguished Travel Award” and Swanson received ASLE’s travel award, which funded their trips.

You can learn more about their trip, in their own words, by visiting “Wicked Problem: a podcast about climate change,” a creation of the Department of Environmental Humanities.

Read more: http://www.stonybrook.edu/happenings/student-spotlight/grad-students-pedal-their-way-to-understanding/