Melvin and Mary Elisabeth Field support the Cancer Center at Massachusetts General Hospital with an abiding, personal commitment.
In 2002, the couple made a gift to fund ovarian cancer research. Ovarian cancer was the disease that afflicted Melvin’s late wife, Janet.
Treated for prostate cancer at the Francis H. Burr Proton Therapy Center, Dr. Field, a retired electrical systems engineer, is grateful that this highly precise technology was available to him. He and Mary Elisabeth got to know the other patients. Many were children being treated for brain or ocular tumors, since proton therapy is less harmful to a child’s developing brain than traditional radiation.
In 2004, the Fields established a charitable remainder trust that funds research to increase the availability of proton therapy for pediatric and eye cancer patients. Their trust also supports the Howard Ulfelder, MD, Healing Garden, located in the heart of the Cancer Center on the eighth floor of the Yawkey Center.
Mary Elisabeth is on the board of the Friends of the Cancer Center and served on the inaugural committee of the one hundred.
