Tami, I got all my treatment here in Ithaca at Cayuga Medical Center which has just opened up a radiation medicine department that is a branch of Roswell Park in Buffalo (one of the top 10 CCCs in the country according to some lists). There is also a well-trained ENT here who did my surgery and will be my primary follow-up person and an extremely well-trained (and incredibly overloaded) medical oncologist(used to be at Sloan Kettering then moved here because he wanted to raise his kids here). Without radiation oncology here, though, If I'd been diagnosed any earlier I might have ended up at Roswell Park, which would be a long way but is the closest CCC.

I have heard mixed things about the treatment facilites for oral cancer at Upstate Medical in Syracuse and at Strong in Rochester--and they aren't CCCs. Probably of you want your mom to get the best care, Roswell Park is the closest quality choice (at least for you it is within a semi-reasonable dirving distance--for me it is over 3 hours away--which is why they opened a branch for radiaiton medicine here).

I also got a very important second opinion from Dana Farber in Boston about whether I needed rad or not, after I'd had my neck and tongue surgery, and it was there I first learned that concurrent chemo might be a possibility and talked to the med oncologist there enough about it to be convince it would be worthwhile to do the whole 9 yards--surgery, rad. AND chemo.