About
Dr. O’Rourke is a medical oncology cancer specialist with the Prisma Health Upstate Cancer Institute. He grew up in Santa Barbara, California and completed his undergraduate studies at Stanford University. He served in the U.S. Navy as an instructor at the Naval Nuclear Power School. He completed medical school at UCLA and residency training at the Duke University Medical Center, where he went on to complete fellowships in medical oncology and geriatrics. He has been a member of the medical staff at Greenville Health System, now Prisma Health, since 1990. Dr. O’Rourke’s practice is blood and cancer illnesses that affect adults. He cares for people living with the full spectrum of cancers. He also participates in the Prisma Gastrointestinal Cancer Multidisciplinary Clinic, in which a multi-specialty team of physicians and nurses provide specialty evaluation and care for cancers of the stomach, pancreas, bile ducts, liver, colon and rectum. He serves on the SWOG Cancer Research Network Gastrointestinal Cancer Committee and participates in the development and conduct of national and international research in gastrointestinal cancer. Dr. O’Rourke is active in cancer clinical research and offers participation in National Cancer Institute (NCI) clinical trials in the NCI Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP) at the Prisma Health Upstate Cancer Institute. He is also an investigator in the Institute for Translation Oncology (ITOR) clinical trials at the Prisma HealthCancer Institute, where precision medicine, new drugs and immunotherapy are developed. At a national level, he is an active investigator in the NCI research base, called the SWOG Cancer Research Network, where he is a founding co-chair of the Palliative and End-of-Life Care Committee. He also serves on the NCI Steering committee which reviews and recommends research studies that address Symptom Control and Quality of Life. Dr. O’Rourke is a national expert in the newly evolving field of cancer survivorship care, devoted to helping cancer survivors regain their full physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health after cancer treatment. He is also a practitioner of integrative oncology, which addresses the full range of a person’s experience with cancer, including exercise, nutrition, sleep, mind-body therapies, social support, and mental and spiritual health. His teams’ research at Prisma has shown benefits for cancer survivors of acupuncture, mindfulness meditation and heart rate variability (HRV) biofeedback. Dr. O’Rourke has a particular interest in medical ethics and has served on the ethics committees of the South Carolina Medical Association (SCMA) and the American Society of Clinical Oncology. He has taken additional training and become board certified in palliative care medicine, which is a new specialty that addresses symptom control, pain relief, communication, and coordination of care for seriously ill persons. He worked with the SCMA to improve physician/patient communication, which led to legislation creating the South Carolina Physician Orders for Scope of Treatment (POST) in 2019. Dr. O’Rourke is a clinical assistant professor at the University of South Carolina, Clemson University School of Health Research, and the UofSC School of Medicine Greenville and has been teaching medical students and physicians in training for over three decades. In June 2020, Dr. O’Rourke received the UofSC School of Medicine Greenville’s Outstanding Service Award. The award “recognizes individuals for their meaningful service contributions to the advancement of their professions, the mission of the medical school and the communities we serve.”
How their research is transforming health care
Dr. O’Rourke has worked with the South Carolina Medical Association Bioethics Committee to improve physician/patient communication, which led to legislation creating the South Carolina Physician Orders for Scope of Treatment (POST) in 2019. His teams’ research at Prisma has shown benefits for cancer survivors of acupuncture, mindfulness meditation and heart rate variability (HRV) biofeedback. Dr. O’Rourke conducts research in measuring clinical work intensity of medical providers and correlating that clinical work intensity to clinician burnout, distress, hope, empath, communication and performance. At a national level, he is an active investigator in the NCI research base, called the SWOG Cancer Research Network, where since 2018, he has been a founding co-chair of the Palliative and End-of-Life Care Committee. This committee is developing clinical trials to improve delivery of palliative care to persons with advanced cancer, improve oncology provider/patient communication regarding serious illness and advance care planning.
Health research keywords
Integrative oncology and mind-body therapies; National Cancer Institute (NCI) clinical trials in the NCI Community Oncology Research Program (NCORP); palliative care and quality of life cancer research; cancer care delivery research
