Pediatric Resident Goes Bald for Bucks Before Boston Marathon!

Mike Kelly, MD, a fourth year internal medicine and pediatric resident at Mass General for Children (MGfC), recently took a seat in the hospital’s Images Boutique barber chair to chop off 11 inches of his hair as part of a fundraising initiative for the MGfC Cancer Center Marathon Team Fighting Kids’ Cancer…One Step at a Time. The avid runner hadn’t had a haircut since March 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic hit Boston and says he decided if he and his fellow marathoner colleagues – residents, Lauren Maldonado, MD, MPH, Emma Materne, MD, and Gregory Fricker, MD – raised $5,000 by Sept. 11, he would buzz his hair and donate it to a charity that makes wigs for children with cancer.

“I want to show solidarity with the many patients who lose their hair during their cancer treatment,” Kelly says. “I’ve seen how challenging and life-altering cancer is for them and their families. This is one small way to hopefully make kids and their families feel that we are doing this for them.”

With help from the hair-raising event, they have raised nearly $25,000 of their total $30,000 goal. Kelly says, “Children with cancer need access to the latest treatments and technologies to get back to what they all want to do: run around, hang with their friends and just be kids. I’m running to help them do that.”