Melissa Sitter

Melissa Sitter has been CEO of Sitter Family Vineyards, premium growers of Cabernet Sauvignon in St. Helena, California, for 27 years. She has an extensive background in Design and Italianate Architectural Renovation, having studied and lived in Florence. She is a published author and freelance journalist, with a passion for short story writing devoted to the common good and medical concerns, that she returned to, while caring for her husband Thomas E. Sitter, during his cancer treatments at California Pacific Medical Center, for several years.

Following her husband's death in 2011, from Stage 4 metastatic melanoma to his brain, she was asked to speak and participate in a film for the work of the Committee on Medicine and Human Values at C.P.M.C., to *put a face on what it is, the CMHV does, for the very sick.

Melissa is a passionate advocate for other cancer patients, and in 2013 was asked by Dr. Tomi Kushner, Dr. Bill Andereck, and Dr. Rushika Mishra, to be part of the new Neuroethics Program, to combine her background and experience in the Committee on Human Values, to speak at an event to raise awareness of the then only CMVH program existing, which was at CPMC. That led to attending their week long international conference in Paris, with world-wide doctors delivering their information on Neuroethics in Medicine.

Because of their combined efforts in CMHV, today there is now a branch in all Sutter Health Hospitals, having seen several thousand patients, and 742 cases alone at CPMC in year, 2020.

Today, Melissa is a Board Member of the Sentinel Node Oncology Research Foundation at CPMC, headed by Dr. Stanley Leong, her husband's oncology surgeon, working on new insights for a molecular database, utilizing Crisper technology, to determine the best type of individual treatment to potentially cure a patient's cancer, and most importantly determine how cancer metastasizes, with their new technology.

Melissa's hope is to create a documentary film, to drive the world of medicine at CPMC, to where it will create a significant place for us, in the world's future technology, in Melanoma. Melissa has a married daughter in San Francisco and a married son in London, and five grandsons.