Riley Hospital for Children
The Riley Children’s Music Therapy program started in 2000 and now provides music therapy services to all inpatient areas of Riley Hospital for Children. Beginning in 2005, the music therapy and hematology/oncology teams have worked with Sheri Robb, PhD, to develop a sustained program of music therapy research. Caitlin Krater, MS, MT-BC serves as research intervener for the Bio-MUSE study at Riley Hospital. Caitlin has more than 10 years of clinical experience and supports patients and families throughout the inpatient units, specializing in cancer and other blood diseases, burn injuries and intensive care. Caitlin also works with the hospital’s grief and bereavement outpatient program, specializing in sibling and perinatal loss.
Children's Mercy Kansas City
Kristin Stegenga, PhD, RN
Kristin Stegenga is a nurse researcher in the Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology/BMT at Children's Mercy, Kansas City. She is a co-investigator for the Biomuse Study. In addition to this, she is a co-investigator of an NCI funded grant studying symptom assessment and self-management in AYAs with cancer. Dr. Stegenga’s program of research focuses on supportive care interventions for children, AYAs and their parents. In addition, she serves as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Pediatric Hematology Oncology Nursing.
Children’s Mercy Kansas City has been a collaborative research partner since 2005. To date, the music therapy team has worked with Dr. Robb on four NIH-funded trials. Kim Robertson MBA, MT-BC, Liesel Stephens MT-BC, and Shelbi Polasik MME, MT-BC (left to right), all board-certified music therapists, are the three current researcher interveners for the BIO-MUSE study at Children’s Mercy. They provide services across inpatient units including hematology/oncology, pediatric and neonatal intensive care units, inpatient rehabilitation, behavioral health and acute medical/surgical care.
Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago
Jenny Shoop, DNP
Jenny Shoop
is a board-certified advanced practice registered nurse in pediatric primary care at Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago, IL. She works on the heme malignancy team in the outpatient
clinic, and
is the project manager and co-PI for the Bio-Muse study at Lurie Children’s Hospital.
Collaboration with Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago began in 2020. Mayte Gomez-Cruz MT-BC, Sheridan Grettenberger MM, MT-BC, and Molly Grettenberger MM, MT-BC (left to right) are three of the board-certified music therapists on the Lurie Children’s Music Therapy team. They collectively support patients on the pediatric intensive care unit, hematology/oncology unit and acute care units, including neurology, pulmonology, transplant, hepatology, nephrology, endocrine, GI and intermediate/general medicine patients. All three lead study sessions with children and families enrolled in the BIO-MUSE study.
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UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland
Jennifer Michlitsch, MD
Jennifer Michlitsch, MD, is a specialist in pediatric blood diseases whose focus is on caring for children with sarcomas, cancerous tumors in bone or other tissues. She has a special interest in treating patients with relapsed sarcomas and other childhood cancers. Dr. Michlitsch's research focuses on new treatments for children with relapsed and treatment-resistant cancers. She has a particular interest in bringing these therapies to all patients at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland, regardless of socioeconomic status. Dr. Michlitsch earned her undergraduate degree from Harvard, and her medical degree from the Keck School of Medicine of USC. She completed a residency in pediatrics at Children's Hospital Los Angeles and a fellowship in pediatric hematology and oncology at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland. Michlitsch is a member of the American Society of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology, Children's Oncology Group (COG) and COG's young investigator mentorship program.
Nicole Elzie-Tuttle, MA
Nicole Elzie-Tuttle
is the clinical research supervisor for pediatric oncology at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland, overseeing the pediatric oncology clinical research program at the
hospital .
She holds a
Masters
degree in general/experimental psychology from California State University, Fresno. After graduating, she spent three years as an emergency medical technician in the greater Los Angeles area. Nicole began her clinical research career at Kaiser Permanente in Los Angeles in 2015, and helped coordinate clinical research in the fields of interventional cardiology, dermatology, allergy, sleep medicine, infectious disease and gastroenterology before joining the pediatric oncology team at UCSF BCH Oakland in 2019.
The music therapy program at Benioff was the first of its kind in the Bay Area . Benioff music therapists Erica Wan MT-BC, Julian Silva MA, MT-BC, Lauren Ragan MA, MT-BC, and Rebecca Hames MA, MT-BC (left to right) are all trained interveners for the BIO-MUSE Study. Collaboration with UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland began in 2024.
