A USC Board of Trustees member and the assistant director of sports medicine for the University of Tennessee football team met for the first time this weekend, as the Vols came to town to take on the Gamecocks.
But the two have a connection that began over a year ago – and it’s much deeper than a board member having dinner with an alumnus of the Arnold School of Public Health.
Trustee J. Egerton Burroughs was diagnosed about two years ago with acute leukemia. His doctors at Duke University Hospital told him he had two options – chemotherapy, which might extend his life up to 18 months, or, if he qualified and a compatible donor was found, a bone marrow or blood stem cell transplant that carried some risk but could provide a cure.
“To me, that was a no-brainer. I opted for the transplant,” Burroughs said.
Luckily, a donor was found on the registry who was a match for Burroughs. And although the pool of potential donors spans the country, this donation was coming from someone with a South Carolina connection. Alex Medina, who earned his master’s degree in advanced athletic training from USC in 2015, would provide the life-saving stem cell donation.
Medina was in grad school at USC when he and his Arnold School classmates volunteered to be swabbed and added to the Be The Match registry. The national marrow donor program connects patients with matching donors for transplants.
In August 2021, he opened an email saying he matched with a patient with leukemia, and information was provided for further tests and screening.
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