ASTRO Honors Two Members With Gold Medal and Bestows Honorary Memberships on Two
LOS ANGELES--The American Society for Therapeutic Radiation and Oncology (ASTRO) honored two of its members at its 38th annual meeting, and welcomed two renowned physicians into the society as honorary members.
LOS ANGELES--The American Society for Therapeutic Radiation andOncology (ASTRO) honored two of its members at its 38th annualmeeting, and welcomed two renowned physicians into the societyas honorary members.
Receiving the ASTRO Gold Medal, the Society's highest honor, wereZvi Y. Fuks, MD, Memorial Sloan-Kettering, and Robert J. Shalek,PhD, professor emeritus, M.D. Anderson.
Dr. Fuks was honored for his work as chair of the Department ofRadiation Oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering. In the 1980s,he assembled a talented team and equipped the department withthe technological capability to perform sophisticated treatmentprograms, realized first in the development of conformal therapyfor prostate cancer.
Dr. Shalek was awarded the Gold Medal for his key role in someof the early developments in radiation oncology, including theapplication of computer calculations for brachytherapy. He wasalso hailed as an educator, in particular, for his 27 years teachingIntroduction to Radiotherapy Physics at M.D. Anderson.
Honorary ASTRO membership was conferred on William C. Wood, MD,Joseph Brown Whitehead Professor of Surgery, Emory UniversitySchool of Medicine. Dr. Wood, one of the first US surgeons tooffer breast-conserving surgery, was a panel member on the NIHconsensus conference on adjuvant chemotherapy for breast cancerin 1985 and chaired the 1990 NIH consensus development conferenceon early breast cancer.
In his acceptance, Dr. Wood said that surgeons and radiation oncologists"share a common understanding of solid tumors," namely,that unless local control is achieved, "it is exquisitelyunlikely that the patient will be cured." This goal, he said,is best obtained by "combining the strengths and avoidingthe weaknesses of our two modalities."
David Bragg, MD, of the University of Utah, the second recipientof an honorary membership, was introduced as an "imager parexcellence." He has served on the National Cancer AdvisoryBoard, and in 1995 became the first RSNA Roentgen Centennial Fellow.He is also acting director for the NCI's Diagnostic RadiologyResearch Program.
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