NCH clinic brings advanced care for women's cancers

Until recently, women in Southwest Florida diagnosed with reproductive system cancers have had few options for advanced care close to home. 

That changed when Naples Comprehensive Health opened its NCH Southwest Florida Gynecologic Oncology clinic in Naples in early October, focusing solely on prevention, diagnosis and treatment of cancers of the female reproductive system. 

The practice is led by gynecologic oncologists Dr. Edward Grendys, who serves as medical director, and Dr. John McBroom, specializing in the treatment of uterine, ovarian, cervical, vaginal and vulvar cancers, and other complex gynecologic conditions. 

According to NCH, both surgeons are recognized leaders in minimally invasive robotic surgery and heated intraperitoneal chemotherapy perfusion, and both are active in clinical trials that help expand access to new therapies. 

Grendys, previously in practice in Fort Myers and with Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa for many years, moved to Naples to open the NCH clinic. In an interview at the clinic at 2320 Vanderbilt Beach Road, McBroom said the new practice offers a wide variety of diagnostic, treatment and research options in one place, lessening the need for patients to travel for surgery and other care. 

“The patients have everything under one roof from the standpoint of case management,” Grendys said. “Subspecialty needs like radiation would go to our local radiation oncologist under our direction, so we still know everything that’s happening. The patients know where to call.” 

Multidisciplinary approach to care 

Grendys said the clinic’s multidisciplinary approach to treatment can involve pathologists, radiation oncologists, medical oncologists, palliative care and genetic counseling. 

“In the very near future we will have clinical trials [research] open, which adds another multidisciplinary factor,” Grendys said. 

McBroom, who serves as a faculty member at George Washington University, and moved to Naples from Luminis Health in Maryland, described the clinic as “the center of the wheel” and the central focus for their patients’ multidisciplinary care. 

“We are centered around the patient and committed to providing comprehensive care that not only treats the cancer but also supports the patient’s overall well-being from diagnosis through survivorship,” McBroom said. 

Grendys, faculty appointed at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, said NCH’s collaboration with Northwestern — which was announced in October 2024 — will help improve local access to clinical research and nationally recognized subspecialty cancer expertise. 

“The Northwestern collaboration is critical in that we’re already part of their tumor board [which reviews and discusses cases and treatment plans],” Grendys said. “We not only listen to their tumor board on Fridays, but we have the ability to present our own cases here for opinions of thought leaders from Northwestern, from their cancer program and their group of medical oncologists and radiation oncologists.” 

Building experienced surgical teams 

For surgeries, Grendys said NCH has one or two operating rooms on its North Naples campus dedicated to gynecologic oncology, depending on the day of the week, with a complete robotics platform and a complete minimally invasive program set up. The practice also works with the same group of operating room nurses who Grendys said are “rapidly becoming very accustomed to treating gynecologic oncology patients.” 

“Those nurses can, in an emergency, operate somewhere else, but when they are used to seeing Dr. McBroom walk in the OR they know his pace, they know his schedule, they know what he does, what he needs,” Grendys said. “It’s when you get an unexpected part of the operation that their ability to flip to something different is really critical.” 

He said the practice completed about 28 surgical cases in the first month, and he expects that number to grow rapidly. 

One of the surgeries completed in the first few weeks of the practice was on a patient who came from Atlanta to Naples to have her procedure done by McBroom. Tanfen Michell, who is battling a rare form of ovarian cancer, was a surgical patient of McBroom’s in Atlanta when she was first treated for the disease in 2014. When she was diagnosed in September this year with a recurrence of the cancer, she said she “tracked him down” to ask for a second opinion. 

“I tracked Dr. McBroom down because I wanted him to operate on me, because I knew he would fight for my life,” Michell said. 

Michell said she was drawn to McBroom’s care because she thinks he involves his patients in a treatment management plan from the beginning, making them feel like “part of the team.” 

“He tells you what the issue is. He explains it to you in lay terms, not just in one or two sentences,” Michell said. “And then he tells you what the management plan is, what we’re going to do and why we’re going to do it that way. 

“As a patient, you become part of that team with him, walking with him, and you can voice your questions. And I ask a lot of questions.” 

She said that when McBroom outlined a new treatment plan for the recurrence, she knew that she would be in good hands. 

“I said to him, ‘I don’t care where you are, will you work with me?’ and he said yes,” Michell recalled. “I told him, ‘Even if you’re in Antarctica, I would go to Antarctica.’ He laughed and said I didn’t need to go to Antarctica, just to Naples.” 

She said when she came to Naples for her surgery, she got to work with Grendys also, when the physicians rotated shifts on weekends, and she saw them as “perfect” partners in the practice. 

“They have that very special connection with people, that humanity thing,” Michell said.  

In a letter to McBroom that she shared with The Naples Press, Michell praised the surgeon’s ability to inspire confidence and optimism in his patients “long before the healing even begins. 

“That unique fusion of mental strength with medical science elevates your practice to an entirely different dimension, where skill, understanding and humanity work seamlessly together,” she wrote.