Joshua Morales makes patients feel so comfortable, many often ask for a hug.
Joshua being treated at MSK Kids
All it takes is a smile and a simple question: “How are you doing today?” That’s how Joshua Morales greets everyone who walks in the door of the David Koch Center for Cancer Care at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). “The people who are at the doors — the valet parking, the concierge desk — we are the first step for patients,” says 25-year-old Joshua. “The doctors are important, of course. But I believe welcoming someone coming through that door is the first step in saving their life.”
Joshua pays special attention to those who come in alone. “I keep my spirit high for them,” he says, “because they are going through something that a lot of people don’t understand.” But Joshua understands. He spent his childhood as a patient at MSK. His hospital records from a decade of care are now kept in a glass frame, “like an achievement,” he says.
A Childhood Spent at MSK Kids
Born and raised in the Bronx, Joshua came to MSK Kids at age 3, diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. He endured multiple rounds of chemotherapy and a bone marrow transplant under the care of pediatric hematologic oncologist Peter Steinherz, MD. Joshua’s memories are a blur of trips back and forth to the hospital. His father was a police officer working two jobs. His mother never left his side. Sometimes they slept overnight in the waiting room. His big brother, Jonathan, would visit, but Joshua was hooked up to so many machines, they couldn’t do much together. Joshua didn’t go to a regular school until he was in third grade. It was his first experience being around healthy children.
Joshua holding a baseball bat
“I had to be careful to not get scrapes or bruises on the playground, jump in puddles, or get dirty like other kids,” says Joshua. “When you have a low immune system, you have to focus on preventing infections.”
Joshua is now cancer free. He hasn’t been seen at MSK Kids since he was 14, although he returned to participate in the annual high school graduation ceremony. “I had the opportunity to meet other people that I didn’t know, going through the same experience that I had,” he says. “It was surreal.”
Joshua wanted to be a police officer like his dad, to protect and serve others. But his father worried it was dangerous, so Joshua learned to be a mechanic. Then in February 2020, just as the pandemic was taking hold, a family friend told him MSK was hiring people to greet patients. He applied and two weeks later got the job that he says is “the most perfect fit.”
Paying Hope Forward to Patients
He’s recently bonded with one patient in particular — a man in his 40s diagnosed with leukemia who comes to appointments
Joshua at his high school graduation with his oncologist, Peter Steinherz, MD
by himself. “One day, he told me he had to get an operation and he was scared, really nervous,” says Joshua. “I had leukemia too. So I shared my story, and we spent 45 minutes talking. I told him, ‘Not only is MSK the best, but they treat you like you’re one of their own.’ ” This patient is doing much better now, Joshua happily reports.
For Joshua, this job is personal.
I feel like, whatever happened so that I was saved, this is my way to pay it forward,” he says. “I say, ‘The first step in beating cancer is believing you can beat it.’ The energy you give off will help someone feel more hopeful. If you take the time to have a conversation, you never know how you can inspire them.”
