Annals of Surgical Oncology 9:519-523 (2002)
© 2002 Society of Surgical Oncology
ANNUAL HERITAGE PRESENTATION |
Honoring Walter Lawrence, Jr., MD: Society of Surgical Oncology President 1979–80
Glenn D. Steele, Jr., MD, PhD
From the Geisinger Health Systems/MC 22-01, Danville, Pennsylvania.
Correspondence: Address correspondence to: Glenn D. Steele, Jr., MD, PhD, Geisinger Health Systems/MC 22-01, 100 N. Academy Ave., Danville, PA 17822; Fax: 570-271-6927; E-mail: gsteele{at}geisinger.edu
At a Society of Surgical Oncology business meeting several years ago, one of our members suggested that we formally honor a past president annually, with the following intent. First, an organization such as the Society of Surgical Oncology is of course an aggregation of members coalesced around a common mission and "genetically" linked to its pedigree. Understanding and celebrating that pedigree are important organizational affirmations. Second, the rapidity of passage through ones career seems to increase each year, thus the need to refamiliarize ourselves and our soon-to-be leadership successors with the glories of the past before our oral histories (myths) fade out completely.
Now fortunately, the honorees last year and this are still very much alive both physically and intellectually! Undoubtedly, many of our predecessors will be honored in due course, appropriately so, and one must understand that the selection process is completely subjective, typically undemocratic as most good surgical decision making processes are, and has allowed me to focus this year on one of my personal heroes and one of our groups most continuously productive members.
Perhaps an apt metaphor would be Walter Lawrence as the "Joe Paterno of cancer surgery." (You can see the influence of my recent move!) However, considering Walter’s educational pedigree at the University of Chicago (Fig. 1), two undergraduate degrees and a medical degree (with honors) in 1948, the vision of Amos Alonzo Stagg comes to mind and might be more appropriate.
After training in the Hopkins and Memorial Sloan-Kettering surgical internships and residencies, Dr. Lawrence became Chief of Surgery of the 46th Army Surgical Hospital in Korea (Fig. 2). Not only was Walter the model for "Hawkeye" (that was a character in a program drama called M*A*S*H in case our younger members do not know), but he also won a Presidential Commendation with Pendant for his stint in Korea.
Several more years of clinical training in a research fellowship at Sloan-Kettering led to an initial junior staff appointment on the Gastric and Mixed Tumor Service and as Instructor in Surgery at Cornell University Medical College and New York Hospital. Under the mentorship of Tom Randall, Dr. Lawrence began a series of investigations ranging from gastrointestinal physiology and metabolism through clinical and laboratory studies of regional cancer chemotherapy and into basic biologic investigations of transplantation and immunology (Fig. 3). Of note, Walter and colleagues did the first human kidney transplants in New York City in 1963, due to the fact that the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center had the only dialysis unit at that time in the city. In 1964, Walter received the Sloan Award for Cancer Research from Alfred P. Sloan himself (Fig. 4)!
In 1966, Dr. Lawrence moved to the Medical College of Virginia as Professor of Surgery and Vice Chairman to David Hume. He soon became the founding head of a new Division of Surgical Oncology. Remember, ladies and gentlemen, in 1966 there never had been a Division of Oncology in any university Department of Surgery! At any rate, Walter never left the Medical College of Virginia. While his administrative and intellectual focus became quite eclectic, his clinical home has always remained the surgical and multimodality treatment of cancer (Fig. 5).
Rather than attempt to select favorites from among his huge portfolio (the "n" is greater than 300) of peer review presented or published papers, let me précis the continuous intellectual themes and give you an inkling of Dr. Lawrence’s creditability by listing the people I know of as past or present leaders in surgery, cancer surgery, cancer biology, etc., with whom Walter has published.
First, the themes:
- The natural history, diagnosis, and treatment of gastric cancer
- Gastrointestinal physiology
- Regional chemotherapy
- The natural history, diagnosis, and treatment of soft tissue sarcoma
- Clinical transplantation and transplantation biology
- Tumor biology
- Surgical oncology curricula in academic and practicing physician venues
- Clinical trial investigations in the multimodality treatments of breast cancer, colorectal cancer, soft tissue sarcomas, melanoma, head and neck cancers, and childhood cancers
- Surgical oncology as a discipline
It should be stressed that the above themes are continuous throughout Walter’s entire career. Of course, there is the usual tendency as one moves along the career path to more multiple coauthored papers and into the realm of overview philosophical type presentations, particularly with an increasing frequency of presidential addresses!
As for listing famous (or infamous) coauthors, let me first apologize to those that I have inadvertently left out (dead or alive). Those included not only needed to be worthy, but I had to either know or know of them (Fig. 6).
This selection of names gives you my view of the linkage between Dr. Lawrence and a number of our important forefathers, a number of our present day Society of Surgical Oncology leadership, and a selection of future Society of Surgical Oncology leaders that Dr. Lawrence has influenced intellectual and clinical leadership in medicine most always shows first as substantive individual participation and then quickly progresses to major academic and discipline-based, group peer recognition.
Of the many groups that Walter participated in and then most always led, the ones most important to him include the Scientific Review Committees of both the National Institutes of Health and the American Cancer Society.
From an early career high point of participation in the Surgical Sciences Studies Section at the National Institutes of Health through his membership on the National Cancer Advisory Board, Walter has maintained peer review grant competitiveness for more than 35 years. Grant credibility and clinical leadership has perhaps been highlighted by Walter’s coordination of the National Cancer Institute’s Cancer Center Grant in 1974 at what is now the Massey Cancer Center of the Medical College of Virginia. This grant has had continuous core grant funding since that time and is one of the major academic and educational centerpieces of the entire institution.
Additional national leadership roles included Walter’s progression to the Chairmanship of the Commission on Cancer, his Presidency of the Society of Surgical Oncology, and his development (with old friend and colleague Dick Wilson) of the Cancer Course of the American College of Surgeons, which has become an important part of the college’s annual meeting.
In addition to the American College of Surgeons, the other leg of the Commission on Cancer, of course, is the American Cancer Society. As has been the case with every major organization in which Walter has been involved, the Presidency of the national American Cancer Society came his way in 1991–1992.
Finally, two particularly joyous aspects of Dr. Lawrence’s long career: "Second place" goes to him experiencing one of the more unique professional transitions—first training superb future leaders and then working for one of them (Figs. 7 and 8)!
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FIG. 8. Dr. Lawrence with his boss Dr. Harry Bear, several years later, again at the Medical College of Virginia.
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First prize for joy in Walter’s life, of course, goes to his family. I am talking here about his "real" family, not us (Figs. 9 and 10).
There is no question that Walter’s 54 years with Susan has accounted for most of the professional and all of the personal success in his life. There is also no question that our evaluation of Walter’s social skills has been markedly and positively influenced by his ability to recruit and retain such a marvelous partner. My suspicion is that the two of them consider the coproduction of four wonderful and loving children, who are also strong contributors to the world, even more important than all of the academic, intellectual, and professional accolades I have earlier summarized.
Walter, I would appreciate it if you and Susan would come up and celebrate with us the fact that we are celebrating and honoring you as one of our most emanate past presidents of the Society of Surgical Oncology (Fig. 11).
Footnotes
Presented at the 55th Annual Cancer Symposium of the Society of Surgical Oncology, Denver, CO, March 14–17, 2002.
Received for publication March 27, 2002.
Accepted for publication May 22, 2002.
