Chair Searches: A Busy Week at SWOG!

Per our bylaws, we’re also  emailing the list to our board of governors. We’ll post details of the election process, and further much more information about the candidates’ backgrounds and visions for our group, as we get closer to group meeting. We now return to our regularly scheduled Front Line.

SWOG’s research agenda is largely set by our more than two dozen research and research support committees, which propose and design the trials we conduct.

One of my most important roles as group chair is to identify and appoint outstanding researchers to lead these committees. 

We’ve recently had leadership spots open up on three committees, one of which we have now filled, and two of which have active, ongoing searches.

I’m delighted to announce that Mark A. Lewis, MD, has accepted my invitation to be the new chair of SWOG’s digital engagement committee. He replaces Dr. Don Dizon, now SWOG’s vice chair of diversity, equity, inclusion, and professional integrity.

Dr. Lewis is director of gastrointestinal oncology for Intermountain Healthcare in Utah, and many of you know him from his time as chair of our adolescent and young adult research support committee from 2015 to 2020.

But even more of you probably are probably familiar with him from social media venues, especially Twitter, where he’s known for his rapport with patients and for his deeply humane, often self-deprecating sense of humor, as he shares oncologic insight and wisdom.

Among the interests he lists in his brief bio on Twitter is “empathy.” In his case, this is not an exaggerated claim. His empathy with patients is hard-earned – he himself lives with a cancer diagnosis, and all that that can imply. 

When he was still in training, he diagnosed himself with hereditary tumor syndrome multiple endocrine neoplasia type 1 (MEN-1). I mention this here not only because he is very open in talking – and writing – about it, but also because it profoundly informs his interactions with both patients and colleagues on social media.

He has been a key contributor to SWOG’s pioneering social media efforts from the start, serving as a member of the digital engagement committee since its formation and, before that, as co-chair of its precursor – the SWOG social media working group.

He also led the Facebook group experiment we ran a few years ago, and he presented on the use of social media in oncology at the general plenary session of our fall of 2019 group meeting.

I encourage you to check him out on Twitter at @marklewismd (start here) and at a digital engagement committee meeting near you! 
 

Radiation Oncology Committee and Genitourinary Committee Chairs

Having hit a home run in picking a new leader for digital engagement, we now have two other committee chair slots for which we’re seeking equally stellar candidates.

Dr. Ian Thompson, who has chaired our genitourinary committee since 2009, will be stepping down from that role. Dr. Roy Decker has formally been chair of our radiation oncology committee since 2019, but for some time now, Dr. James Yu has been filling in for him as interim chair, and we are looking to appoint a permanent leader (permanent for at least a five-year term, that is).

Descriptions of both of these roles with calls for candidates went out to all SWOG members recently. Check your spam folder if you missed them.

Interested candidates should submit a CV or NIH biosketch and a vision statement to lesliew@ohsu.edu. The deadline for applications for chair of the radiation oncology committee is February 20th. For GU committee chair applications, the deadline is February 28th.