[{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/share-dev.upmc.com\/2024\/09\/life-changers-flinko-kocher\/#Article","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/share-dev.upmc.com\/2024\/09\/life-changers-flinko-kocher\/","headline":"UPMC Life Changers: As Kids, Victor Flinko and Dr. Matt Kocher Battled Leukemia Together. As Adults, They’re Saving Children’s Lives Together","name":"UPMC Life Changers: As Kids, Victor Flinko and Dr. Matt Kocher Battled Leukemia Together. As Adults, They’re Saving Children’s Lives Together","description":"

Victor Flinko, BSN, and Matt Kocher, MD, battled leukemia at the same time as kids. They're now both surgical team members at UPMC Children's Hospital.<\/p>","datePublished":"2024-09-23","dateModified":"2024-09-19","author":{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.upmc.com\/services\/pediatrics","name":"Pediatrics","url":"https:\/\/www.upmc.com\/services\/pediatrics","sameAs":"https:\/\/share-dev.upmc.com\/pediatrics\/","parentOrganization":"UPMC"},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"UPMC HealthBeat","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/share-dev.upmc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/UPMC-HealthBeat-Logo.png","url":"https:\/\/share-dev.upmc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/UPMC-HealthBeat-Logo.png","width":600,"height":60}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/share-dev.upmc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/1_0kwhplbz.jpg","url":"https:\/\/share-dev.upmc.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/1_0kwhplbz.jpg","height":1080,"width":1920},"url":"https:\/\/share-dev.upmc.com\/2024\/09\/life-changers-flinko-kocher\/","about":["Living and Wellness","UPMC Stories"],"wordCount":2071,"articleBody":"A childhood experience helped inspire Victor Flinko, BSN, and Matt Kocher, MD, to pursue medicine as a career.The same childhood experience, in fact.As kids, Victor and Dr. Kocher were next-door neighbors at UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh as they underwent treatment for leukemia.Years later, they wound up together again at UPMC Children’s \u2014 this time, saving others.Their experience as childhood cancer patients guided them both into pediatric medicine. Victor became a surgical nurse at UPMC Children’s, and Dr. Kocher became a pediatric anesthesiologist.\u201cChildren\u2019s was somewhere where I always wanted to be just because of my history with the leukemia and all those people that took care of me,\u201d Victor says. \u201c(They were) my role models that I aspired to become.\u201dToday, Victor and Dr. Kocher are key parts of the surgical teams treating some of the sickest patients at UPMC Children’s.\u201cKids are just a vulnerable population, and I want to make sure that they have a voice or someone to help protect them,” Dr. Kocher says.‘We Were Room Buddies’Victor and Dr. Kocher both grew up in western Pennsylvania \u2014 Victor to the east of Pittsburgh and Dr. Kocher to the west.Victor’s first leukemia diagnosis was in 2004, when he was 4 years old. He underwent chemotherapy and radiation, but the cancer returned a year later.\u201cI think at that time, I knew that I was sick, but that’s really all I knew,\u201d Victor says. \u201cI feel like I didn’t understand truly at that time what cancer was. I just knew that I was sick, I was in the hospital, and I was going to get better.\u201dMeanwhile, Dr. Kocher began feeling sick in January 2005, when he was 11 years old. His doctors initially thought it was a sinus or upper respiratory infection.But when he showed no improvement by March, he went to UPMC Children’s for blood tests. He was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, a type of leukemia that typically begins in the bone marrow.Like Victor, he also underwent chemotherapy at UPMC Children’s. And it was there that Victor and Dr. Kocher first interacted with each other.\u201cAll of the hematology-oncology patients were on the same floor going through chemotherapy at the same time,\u201d Dr. Kocher says. \u201cSo, when we were not completely immunosuppressed, we had the chance to go to the playroom and play in there.\u201cSo, we ran into each other a couple of times there. But then our parents knew each other and really had the chance to talk to each other a lot more than Victor and I did.\u201dBoth Dr. Kocher and Victor ultimately needed transplants. Dr. Kocher received a bone marrow transplant from his sister, who was a match. Victor needed a cord blood transplant, a type of stem cell transplant that uses donated blood from a newborn’s umbilical cord and placenta. He received his transplant from an anonymous donor.As they prepared for and recovered from their transplants, Dr. Kocher’s and Victor’s rooms were next to each other.\u201cWe were room buddies,\u201d Dr. Kocher says. \u201cEven though we didn\u2019t get to see each other physically during that period, we were getting updates from our parents about how things were going.\u201dVictor developed graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) after his transplant, so he needed to stay in the hospital longer.But ultimately, the transplants did their job; both Victor and Dr. Kocher recovered from the cancer. About a year after leaving the hospital, they met up again for a trip to Dave & Buster’s, a restaurant and arcade.\u201cI just remember playing some of the games and winning some tickets,\u201d Victor says.Dr. Kocher and Victor went their separate ways after their treatment. But both ended up following parallel paths into medicine.‘I Feel Like a Kid at Heart’Originally, Dr. Kocher \u201cwanted nothing to do with the hospital\u201d after his treatment. During high school, he was interested in science. He thought about pursuing a career in biology and research.But after starting college, he realized he wanted to make an impact \u2014 and to see the results of that impact.\u201cThat\u2019s really the pivot point where I was like, \u2018Well, I feel better about being in a hospital and taking care of people,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cSo, at that point, I pivoted from research to being a physician and actually seeing a change in the people that I\u2019m taking care of.\u201dAt first, Dr. Kocher wanted to become a general pediatrician. But after a rotation in anesthesia, he fell in love with that specialty.\u201cI liked the procedural aspect of it, but also that I can do something and see a change quickly,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s not necessarily instant gratification, but being able to see that change quickly and knowing that I’m going to be helping someone get better, whether it\u2019s from a small surgery all the way up to some of the largest tumor resections or brain surgeries.\u201dThe desire to help children also attracted Dr. Kocher, who came to UPMC Children’s in 2019.\u201cI feel like a kid at heart,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd knowing what I’ve gone through, if I run into anyone with a similar situation, I feel like I can connect with them. My hope is to make them feel more comfortable, feel like they have a safe place to talk about what\u2019s going on, and have a soundboard to kind of go back and forth and build a relationship or conversation\u201d‘I’ve Always Had a Special Place in My Heart for the Kids’Meanwhile, Victor was pursuing his own path into medicine. Because of his own past, he always felt a draw toward health care.\u201cI’ve always had a special place in my heart for the kids, and it has a lot to do with me going through what I went through when I was a kid,\u201d he says.\u201cI never wanted anyone else to go through that whole process. I just wanted people to be able to live their life normally and free. No kid deserves to have cancer be involved in their life in that kind of way.\u201dVictor started working at UPMC Children’s as a volunteer in transport when he was 18 years old. He then moved to a position as a patient care technician.Remembering the nurses who helped take care of him, Victor planned to enter nursing school. But he suffered another medical setback when he developed a cavernous malformation \u2014 an abnormal collection of blood vessels \u2014 on his brain stem.The condition caused numbness on the right side of his body, and he needed brain surgery at UPMC Presbyterian to correct it. The surgery fixed the problem.\u201cA month after I was done recovering, I reapplied for nursing school,\u201d Victor says. \u201cI was thankful that they kind of knew what was going on with me, so they held my position.\u201dAfter nursing school, Victor returned to UPMC Children’s in 2022 as a circulating nurse in the operating room. He helps make sure surgeons and anesthesiologists have what they need for the procedure. He also ensures the patient is safe and properly positioned.Working as a nurse was Victor’s way of saying thank you to the nurses who cared for him when he was sick.\u201cI vividly remember the nurses that took care of me,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd I said, \u2018That’s what I want to do to help other people who are in the same situation.\u2019 Those people were the role models that pushed me to become a nurse.\u201d‘It’s the Real Deal’Victor and Dr. Kocher worked together in the operating room at UPMC Children’s for several months without realizing their previous connection. Only a chance conversation between Dr. Kocher and operating room nurse Alexis Mamros sparked a reconnection.As Dr. Kocher set up for a procedure, Alexis asked him if he had ever experienced general anesthesia. He mentioned his experience with leukemia in 2005.Remembering a previous conversation with Victor about his leukemia treatment, Alexis asked Dr. Kocher if he knew Victor.\u201cShe said, \u2018He had cancer, too. He had surgery. When did you have it?\u2019\u201d Dr. Kocher recalls. \u201cI told her when I had my chemotherapy, and she said, \u2018I think that\u2019s the same time as Victor. Let me give him a call.\u2019\u201dVictor was elsewhere in the hospital when he received the call from Alexis.\u201cShe asked, \u2018When did you have your bone marrow transplant?\u2019\u201d Victor says. \u201cI said, \u2018That\u2019s kind of weird to ask right off the bat, but it was 2005.\u2019 And then I just heard a bunch of screaming in the background of the phone call.\u201cI was really confused. She just said, \u2018Come to the front desk now.\u2019 I thought something was happening, like we were getting some sort of trauma or something, so I ran out there, and everybody was just standing there and smiling.\u201dAlthough Victor and Dr. Kocher remembered similar details about their hospital experience, they still couldn’t confirm their previous relationship. So, Victor called his mother.\u201cI called my mom and asked, \u2018Hey, do you know a Matt Kocher?\u2019\u201d Victor says. \u201cAnd she said, \u2018Oh, yeah, you guys went to Dave & Buster\u2019s. Do you remember?\u2019 And I was on speakerphone, and everybody could hear the conversation. And they were like, \u2018Oh my God, it\u2019s the real deal.\u2019\u201dVictor’s mother even had photographic proof \u2014 a photo of the two boys together at Dave & Buster’s.\u201cI probably wouldn’t have ever made the connection had someone else not intervened,\u201d Dr. Kocher says. \u201cI knew Victor but didn\u2019t really think it was the same Victor from years ago. So, it was just a random fluke chance that we were able to actually make that full connection and go all the way back to 19, 20 years ago.\u201cWe were always nice to each other beforehand. But, now, it’s nice to know we were friends all those years ago. And we\u2019re just continuing that friendship now.\u201d‘We Understand What It’s Like’Victor and Dr. Kocher don’t work together on every surgery, but they often find themselves in the same operating room.Whether they’re working together or separately, however, they spend every shift trying to help sick children get better. And they can’t help but lean on their own experience while doing so.\u201cGoing through what we went through gives us a better understanding about the full circle: how the family feels, how the kids feel,\u201d Victor says. \u201cAnd in the operating room, the patients that we get are coming to us at a very vulnerable time for them. And those patients, those family members, are putting their trust in us, who are complete strangers to them in a sense.\u201cHaving that background and understanding, we understand what it’s like to go through something that’s very difficult and somewhat traumatizing for a younger kid and family members.\u201dBecause of the nature of their jobs, Dr. Kocher gets more face time with patients and families than Victor does. But both of them say they always strive to ease the worries of children and their families.\u201cKids coming for surgery are definitely terrified,\u201d Dr. Kocher says. \u201cI remember going to the operating room a couple of times and going under general anesthesia. But just having that knowledge of knowing what I felt, I think I can kind of relate to them.\u201cAnd now that I’m older … I kind of see the side that my parents went through. I know how anxious and nervous they were and can kind of relate to the parents of the kids that are about to undergo anesthesia and have surgery, and know that they’re worried, and can kind of reassure them about how they’re feeling.\u201dVictor and Dr. Kocher remember how vulnerable they felt in the hospital and how happy they were when they were healthy.They’re now paying that forward.\u201cI think the most rewarding thing for me is when we can take a kid who’s sick, make them better, and get them on with their life,\u201d Victor says. \u201cThey can continue to just grow, be happy, go to school and make friends, and not have to deal with anything else with the hospital.\u201dSources"},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"2024","item":"https:\/\/share-dev.upmc.com\/2024\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"09","item":"https:\/\/share-dev.upmc.com\/2024\/\/09\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"UPMC Life Changers: As Kids, Victor Flinko and Dr. Matt Kocher Battled Leukemia Together. 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