New Bell Rings End of Chemotherapy Treatment for Wayne UNC Cancer Patients

For our patients with cancer and their care teams, the “ringing of the bell” is a significant moment – a point in time that signals the end of a patient’s active treatment and, an important milestone in their cancer journeys.

Now Wayne UNC Health Care is able to continue this tradition, with a newly-installed bell in our Oncology unit.

“One day one of our patients that we had developed a relationship with was going over to Southeastern Medical Oncology Center to ring their bell,” said Marquita Ingram, Supervisor and Educator of Clinical Operations on our Oncology Unit. “We got to thinking that we really needed to have a bell for patients receiving treatment at Wayne UNC.”

Word quickly spread that Oncology was looking for a bell. Dr. Dimitrios Lintzeris’s office contacted the team to tell them he had a bell in his office that he would be willing to donate. The maintenance team installed the bell on an IV pole, and the team received a donated tassel from The Cloth Barn.

The team has received positive feedback from patients since installing the bell over the summer, said Marquita. “They really get involved in it,” she said. “Sometimes they’ll have their family there. We’ll take pictures, and they will have shirts made up. This is a symbol that they’re at the end of a very tough journey.”

Marquita said teammates involved in the patients’ treatment are enjoying the bell as much as the patients are, having been with many of these patients through every stage of their treatment.

A tradition started in 1996 at MD Anderson Cancer Center, the bell-ringing ritual is now widespread. U.S. Navy Rear Admiral Irve Le Moyne, a patient with head and neck cancer, installed a brass bell at the main campus in the Radiation Treatment Center.