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Introduction of Dr. William C. Wood

Correspondence: Address correspondence and reprint requests to: John E. Niederhuber, MD, University of Wisconsin Comprehensive Cancer Center, K4/614 Clinical Cancer Center, 600 Highland Avenue, Madison, WI 53792; Fax: 608-263-8613; E-mail: niederhu{at}uwccc.wisc.edu

I am extremely honored to introduce to you this morning our society’s distinguished president, Dr. William C. Wood, who will deliver the presidential address. This year, the office of president of The Society of Surgical Oncology has been awarded to a very distinguished member (Fig. 1)—a national leader in cancer medicine, in breast cancer research, and a talented steward of cancer surgery. The road to this recognition is not an easy one and the honor is not given lightly. In the case of our 54th president, Bill Wood, he has served this society faithfully, unselfishly, and with exceptional vision throughout his career.

View larger version (130K): [in this window] [in a new window]   FIG. 1. Bill Wood.

His father was an ordained Baptist minister and a true Southern gentleman—a romantic at heart and a bit of a dreamer. He was a very good preacher—known widely for his ability to tell a good story.

Bill’s mother was the daughter of Norwegian immigrants. She was blessed with a terrific mind and was a fantastic teacher. By the acknowledgment of everyone, Violet Wood had a tremendous impact on the raising of her son. This was a strong Christian home, well focused on the clear goals of having the Wood children become highly educated, motivated individuals—positioned for a life of service to others.

Bill’s younger brother (by 8 years), John, talks about the closeness of the family. It was a tradition that the family gather together each evening for dinner—a dinner filled with lively debate, and John remembers that his older brother was the leader of these discussions. Bill’s mother and father carefully spaced their children to insure there would be adequate financial support for their higher education.

Both of Bill’s younger brothers, John and Jim, are ordained ministers, and their mother has been known to comment, with just a touch of embarrassment, that even though Bill is a physician and not a member of the clergy, he does teach Sunday school.

It is not clear when Bill decided that medicine would be his career. His brother John tells the story of Bill being asked by his mother, when he was about five or six, what he was going to do when he grew up. Bill’s answer was to the point and immediate: "I am going into medicine, marry a blond, and drive a Mercedes."

Bill’s brother John, who is pastor of a large Presbyterian church in Knoxville, Tennessee, talks about Bill as a second father. "Bill was extremely supportive of his much younger siblings. He was always there for us," John stated. John said that throughout their adult lives they have been each other’s "very best friend."

Bill attended high school at Wheaton Academy in West Chicago. He was, as you would expect, a stellar student and upon completing high school entered Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. Wheaton College is an outstanding liberal arts school with an emphasis on providing Christian-based higher education and on preparing its students for service and leadership. It was at Wheaton during his senior year that he met Judy—this was the blond that I noted earlier. Judy had traveled all the way from Pasadena, California, to attend Wheaton College.

It must be noted that the young woman he fell in love with at Wheaton was from equally fine stock and shared the same devotion to church, family, and society. Judy was a freshman when they met and her parents made it very clear that the first priority for their daughter was that she finish college. Judy put her college education into high gear and attended summer sessions so that she could graduate early. She completed her degree in just 3 years, and on August 15, 1964, Bill and Judy were married. If my calculations are correct, Judy arrived in Boston just as Bill began those wonderful carefree years of clinical clerkships and surgical residency. I suspect there were moments during those early years when Judy wondered why she had hurried so to finish college early.

There were two close friends of Bill’s during his days at Wheaton Academy and Wheaton College. They were a pretty special trio, by all accounts, and their subsequent lives provide ample support for that conclusion. Upon leaving Wheaton College, Bill went off to Harvard to study medicine while one of his friends went to Princeton to study theology and became a Presbyterian minister. His other friend graduated from Yale and is currently The Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University.

In preparing to introduce Bill today, I had the pleasure of speaking to one of this distinguished West Chicago trio, Dr. John Huffman (Fig. 2). John is pastor of St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Newport Beach, California. John and Bill have remained very close over the years.

View larger version (114K): [in this window] [in a new window]   FIG. 2. John Huffman.

While a student at the Princeton Seminary in 1963, John was able to visit Bill, a first-year medical student, in Boston. When he arrived, Bill wasted no time in showing him his passion; John’s first night included a whirlwind tour of four of Boston’s famous hospitals. At the fourth hospital, according to Dr. Huffman, there was an emergency surgery starting and the surgeons needed additional help holding retractors. So totally unfazed, they scrubbed in—Bill leading his dear friend and first-year Princeton theology student to assist in his first and only surgery.

Dr. Huffman shared with me another moving insight into the character of our president. He told me how Bill had been there for their college-age daughter when she became ill and how he had helped to establish the diagnosis—unfortunately of Hodgkin’s disease. How much it had meant to their daughter and to the Huffman family to have Bill’s total and unwavering support through a very difficult time. Bill was the consummate caring physician and the devoted friend.

Finishing Harvard Medical School, Bill was quite vigorously recruited to train in surgery at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). He had spent a lot of time at the MGH during his clinical rotations and the faculty knew him well. "He was the best of the lot," they said, and as several told me, "He didn’t disappoint us." His training in surgery included a 2-year sojourn at the Surgery Branch of the National Cancer Institute.

I happen to believe that, when you take the measure of a very successful surgeon and teacher such as our president, you will find in his or her past a great mentor. There is a saying: "Great leaders and great teachers are the product of great teachers." Certainly, many individuals have influenced the life and the training of Bill Wood, but I do not believe anyone has had more impact than Dr. Gerald Austen (Fig. 3), the distinguished emeritus professor and chair of surgery at the MGH. From numerous conversations with Dr. Austen over the years—as well as one just a few weeks ago—I have come to know the deep respect and admiration he has for Bill.

View larger version (133K): [in this window] [in a new window]   FIG. 3. Gerald Austen.

When Bill completed his training in surgery, he was selected to be the chief resident at the MGH—certainly one of the cherished pinnacles of surgery training. Bill joined the faculty at the MGH in 1975 and began his career as a surgical oncologist.

It was during these first years in academic surgery that his friend from the MGH residency program, Al Cohen (Fig. 4), joined the MGH faculty and played a major role in Bill’s life. Al and Bill were practice partners at the MGH and they were given the assignment by Dr. Austen of developing surgical oncology. As Al says, "We shared everything." They enjoyed, from all accounts, one of those rare and special working relationships. They were true collaborators, confident in their own skills, and each tried in every way to boost the other. Al said the only fault he could find with Bill is that "he could eat everything and anything without gaining an ounce and he has never been known by anyone to lose even one strand of hair."

View larger version (84K): [in this window] [in a new window]   FIG. 4. Al Cohen.

Not only has he provided distinguished leadership and a new direction for the Department of Surgery, but he also assumed the responsibility of leading the Emory Winship Cancer Institute until just recently, when a new director was recruited. I can tell you that the leadership at Emory considers Bill as the true lynchpin of the medical school and the Emory Clinic.

Bill is known to the members of this society for his expertise in breast cancer and for the national and international leadership that he brings to breast cancer research. As you would expect, he has received many awards and much recognition for his academic accomplishment.

This past December, Bill received a very special recognition at the 23rd Annual San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. He was honored for being one of ten breast cancer researchers each having authored a landmark manuscript during the past century reporting the results of a phase III clinical study that demonstrated a significant 5-year survival benefit. These ten authors represented the best of a century of breast cancer clinical research.

Bill has always placed the utmost priority on his family. He is not just a terrific cancer physician, surgeon, and administrator, but a man of literature, arts, and theology.

He has always been a great father to his three children, Kristin, Bill, and Lindsay, all of whom are here this morning. He and Judy have acquired a son-in-law, Mike, and recently Kristin and Mike presented Bill and Judy with their first granddaughter. Throughout these years Judy has been his very soul mate!

I want to conclude my introduction of Bill Wood with one final comment. It is as follows: You cannot possibly appreciate, or have the full measure of this man, unless you come to realize the depth of his faith and his commitment to put into practice—each and every day—his deeply felt Christian beliefs.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you your 54th president, Dr. William C. Wood.

Received for publication March 28, 2001. Accepted for publication April 18, 2001.

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