One of the reasons I like doing this blog is that it forces me to regularly review my week and place it in a bit of perspective. It is so easy to let the days blur into each other; by stopping to reflect on the past week, important events and tasks do not fall by the wayside quite so easily. And the merry-go-round spins more quickly some weeks (like this one) than others, making this exercise particularly valuable.
Even as I write this, our second volley of Lombardi’s Strategic Plan meetings last Monday and Tuesday had already slipped out of my active consciousness until I reviewed my weekly calendar. And, it would be a shame to let that extraordinary exercise recede into the dim reaches of memory. Led again by an able facilitator, Alan Spector, a group of us really drilled down on Lombardi’s vision, mission, objectives, strategies and plans. We are not yet done, but I’d like to share our vision, mission and objectives as they stand now.
Vision: Prevent and cure cancer with a local focus and global impact
Mission: Prevent, treat, and cure cancers by linking scientific discovery, expert and compassionate patient care, quality education, and partnership with the community; guided by the principle of cura personalis, “care for the whole person.”
Objectives
· Advance transformative research that contributes to the prevention and cure of cancer
· Reduce the impact of cancer and diminish disparities in our region
· Increase patient volumes and improve the quality of care in partnership with MedStar Health and other collaborators
· Expand our leadership of high-impact clinical research
· Ensure the long-term growth, vibrancy, and financial stability of Lombardi
We expect to complete this planning process by the end of the year, and the resulting plan will provide us with a living blueprint that guides our actions in a dynamic manner. You can expect much more information about the plan over the next few months.
Wednesday was highlighted by the Georgetown University Board of Directors Meeting; the Committee on Medical Center Affairs (COMCA) heard a lengthy and exciting presentation by Howard Federoff, Joy Drass and me regarding the joint Georgetown University – MedStar Health cancer initiative.
The alignment of all concerned is remarkable, and everyone was energized by the progress we have made over the past year or two. Needless to say, all systems are “go” and I am gratified to be able to report this progress to you. It was fun to attend the Board reception and dinner that evening and hear all the positive comments about the progress we are making to build our shared enterprise.
But, before I did that I attended two other receptions – first to welcome Ming Tan, our new Chairman of Biostatistics, Bioinformatics and Biomathematics, and then to bid a fond farewell to Minetta Liu, who has moved to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester MN after 17 years at Georgetown to pursue her interests in circulating tumor cells. She will be missed. Welcome, Ming, and thank you, Minetta. Thursday was consumed by other GU related board meetings and by the dedication, reception and dinner to celebrate the opening of Regents Hall, a spectacular new building for science on the main campus.
My clinic was bumped back to Friday morning and I saw one my young patient with colon cancer, previously discussed in this blo. He is tolerating his chemotherapy well, and had a repeat CT scan of the abdomen and MRI scan of his liver a few days ago, showing that his metastatic disease has stabilized, after two months of FOLFOX chemotherapy in combination with the anti-VEGF antibody, bevacizumab. The bevacizumab was added because his metastases had grown following a brief treatment hiatus to permit removal of his primary colon tumor. However, while the disease is liver-confined, there are eight discrete metastases distributed throughout the organ, making a surgical approach extremely challenging. We are keeping him on the current treatment regimen, though I’ll have a low threshold for introducing liver-directed therapy to reduce his tumor burden further.
Every time I see him, I am reminded just how important it is for all of us to work twice as hard to come up with effective new treatments that can give him, and countless others, the chance to raise their children and live full lives. We have work to do!
This perspective truly animates my research. We have some terrific projects going on in the lab, and we have embraced Dick Schlegel’s conditional cell reprogramming methods to help us better understand how to treat cancers with a personalized focus. I look forward to sharing our work when it is my turn to give a Lombardi Research Update Seminar.
That’s all for now. Harriet and I have been overdue for a quiet weekend (our son Ken has fully recovered from last week’s appendectomy and took his two large dogs out for a two-mile walk today) and look forward to kicking back a bit, though I am now working on the next draft of my CCSG sections based on the feedback received form our External Advisory Committee meeting last month.
I hope you’re enjoying your weekend and have a productive week.