10.1245/ASO.2004.06.929
Annals of Surgical Oncology 11:795-797 (2004)
© 2004 Society of Surgical Oncology
INTRODUCTION TO THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS |
Introduction of Dr. Alfred M. Cohen
S. Eva Singletary, MD, FACS
Correspondence: Address correspondence and reprint requests to: S. Eva Singletary, MD, FACS, Department of Surgical Oncology, The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, 1515 Holcombe Boulevard, Box 444, Houston, TX 77030-4095; Fax: 713-792-2225; E-mail: esinglet{at}mdanderson.org
Alfred Cohen was born in New York City during the early days of World War II and remained tied to the East Coast for much of his professional life. In the late 1950s, he ventured upstate to Ithaca, where he earned his BA in mathematics and physics from Cornell University. True to those times, his college picture reveals a Happy Days look of openness and innocence typical of an era as yet untouched by Vietnam and Watergate (Fig. 1). From 1964 to 1967, he studied for his MD at Johns Hopkins University, where he also published his first two clinical research articles. The year 1967, marked by the birth of the hippy movement and antiwar rallies for some, brought him to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. From 1967 to 1975, he completed his training in surgery, which included a 2-year stint from 1969 to 1971 as a clinical associate at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda. While there, he perfected his surgical technique but also discovered a love for bench research, working with Drs. Alfred Ketcham and Everett Sugarbaker on the biology of metastases and with Drs. Don Morton and Yosef Pilch on tumor immunology. His work there resulted in nine research publications.
After the completion of his residency in 1975, Dr. Cohen joined the faculty in Surgical Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He enjoyed the mentorship of Dr. Claude Welch and Dr. W. Gerald Austen, the Chairman of Surgery, and also entered into a long-term partnership and friendship with Dr. William Wood. This relationship was a fruitful one; between 1979 and 1989, they shared authorship on 24 papers. While at Massachusetts General, he served as Co-director for Oncology Research from 1976 to 1986 and as Co-director of Surgical Oncology from 1980 to 1986. His research interests were diverse, divided between clinical studies devoted to improving management strategies for colorectal and pancreatic cancer and research studies using biochemical and immunological tools to better understand the biology of cancer. He also developed the look of a 1970s research scholar, now sporting a fashionable beard to balance out the thinning hair on top (Fig. 2).
An interest in hepatic artery chemotherapy prompted the development of a program using an implantable titanium pump that had been developed at the University of Minnesota, and this ultimately led Dr. Cohen to return to New York City in 1986 for a second phase of his career at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Institute. He was to remain there for 14 years, serving ultimately as Vice Chairman for Administrative Affairs, Medical Director of the Surgical Day Hospital, Chair of the Perioperative Leadership Committee, and Director of the Colorectal Cancer Disease Management Team. His research career continued to blossom in New York. During his time there, he was the principal investigator or co-principal investigator on nine research grants totaling nearly $10.5 million and was coauthor of an additional 114 original research papers and 55 reviews and book chapters. Of interest in this weighty compendium of achievements is that there is senior editorship of but a single book, a text on colon cancer published in 1995. He recounts having spent 2 days a week on this project for almost 2 years, concluding finally that the returns on this kind of investment of effort were not large enough to venture into this area again.
The year 2000 marked a sea change in both the professional and personal lives of Dr. Cohen. In that year, he was recruited away from New York to assume the role of Director and Chief Executive Officer at the Lucille P. Markey Cancer Center at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. Not only did he move from a heavily clinical/teaching/research role at Memorial into a leadership position for a major cancer center, but he left behind the familiar pace of the nation’s largest urban center for the rural environment of Kentucky’s bluegrass country. Enthusiastic about immersing himself in this new culture, he promptly set out to ride a horse (Fig. 3), something he had never done before, and just as promptly fell off and broke his arm.
Not to be deterred, he and his wife, Conner, purchased a large thoroughbred brood mare farm, where they see the birth of 40 to 50 foals every year and where they have learned to ride well enough to enjoy ranch vacations. They have also developed a love for the people, culture, and animals of East Africa and have traveled there extensively. I don’t know whether the tattoo of a lion shown in Fig. 4 is real or not, but it would not surprise me if it were.
On the professional side of his life in Kentucky, Dr. Cohen has enjoyed the leadership challenges of directing 170 faculty members in 28 departments from 8 colleges. He maintains a surgical practice in the surgical oncology program at the University of Kentucky Chandler Medical Center and has served as the principal investigator on two major grants totaling $9 million, including funding from the Kentucky Lung Cancer Research Program.
Throughout his career, Dr. Cohen has been an active member of dozens of professional organizations. In the Society of Surgical Oncology, his participation began in 1986 as a member of the Resident/Fellow Award Committee and has extended nonstop to his service this past year as president. His list of awards and honors is too extensive to enumerate here. Beginning with the Henry Strong Denison Scholar in Medical Research award at Johns Hopkins in 1966, the list of awards identifying him as an exemplary researcher, clinician, and teacher continues to this day.
For those who work with Alfred Cohen, nothing but their best will do in meeting his high standards and expectations. He sets these high standards because he cares deeply about quality care, about doing the best for patients, about advancing our knowledge base through broad-based research, and about outcomes. He is a man of boundless energy, technical savvy, and incredible adaptability. Whether as director of a large cancer center or president of this society, his leadership abilities will continue to stimulate everyone who has the opportunity to come into contact with this remarkable man.
Received for publication May 7, 2004.
Accepted for publication June 23, 2004.
