National Cancer Prevention Month isn’t until February, but the issue holds a personal significance for me today. My mother was a cancer survivor, and we were about to celebrate 10 years of being cancer-free after a successful hemicolectomy and countless rounds of chemotherapy almost a decade ago. As a family, my children were young adolescents at the time of her initial diagnosis, and I remember that everyone was supportive and brave. We were up for the fight, and everyone in the family joined the fray. My children and wife shaved their heads in solidarity back then, and we prayed together with my pastor father year after year, until it seemed that we had finally triumphed after all when the 5-year mark was reached. My mother felt great, and her oncologist provided the hopeful “all clear!”
A few weeks ago, my father called to say that my mother was feeling short of breath and that they were headed to the local emergency room. I joined them and comforted my parents, explaining the possible causes for her symptoms and what each exam and lab draw was designed to test and answer. But, when the ER physicians ordered an abdominal CT scan without explanation and conferred at the nursing station, I recognized the body language instantly. My mother was admitted for pleural effusions but, as the thoracentesis and then chest tube fluids were sent to cytology and the hospital days passed one after another, we waited patiently to hear the confirmation of the diagnosis that we already knew: return of her colon cancer, metastatic to her lungs (although we learned that it had spread to her adrenal glands as well). It was a devastating blow.After two weeks in the hospital, we were able to bring my mother home, and I left the following morning to join the ACPM Board of Regents meeting. For a passing moment, I was tempted to withdraw from my duties as the ACPM President-Elect, and to focus my remaining energies on the care of my dying mother. I did, in fact, submit my resignation after 22 years of faculty service to Georgetown University and will perhaps face a similar decision point about my duties as Chief of Staff for the Veterans Health Administration in the months ahead. In any case, I find this to be a reflective time for me. Those who know me know that I am not particularly emotive, but I must admit that I feel a personal sense of loss and helplessness that I am unaccustomed to. Our family does not feel particularly heroic and defiant this time around, although we are doing our best to put on our brave faces. I know that we are not alone in facing such trying times.
Over 2 million Americans will be diagnosed with cancer this year, and more than 600,000 will die from their disease. Nearly half of all deaths can be attributed to preventable causes like smoking, obesity and physical inactivity, among others. Effective public education and policy initiatives, evidence-based practices to reduce risky behaviors, addressing the unequal burden of disease among racial and ethnic minorities and other underserved people, encouraging regular screenings and other clinical and community interventions are essential to addressing the devastation that cancer has on our families and our communities. And, ACPM remains an important leader in this important endeavor.
ACPM represents and supports preventive medicine physicians in their role as public health and health systems leaders, and preventive medicine as a discipline promotes healthy lifestyles, population health and health care leadership. We spent a recent ACPM Board Retreat discussing how best to address the strategic challenges ahead for ACPM, finding ways to better serve our members and to bolster vitality and value in our member experiences, evaluating options for strategic pivots in our operating model and bold strategies to strengthen our financial foundations, and thinking aspirationally about moonshot goals and the future of our College. ACPM is the authoritative voice of preventive medicine, and we push forward on the policies, practices, research, training and education and other programs and initiatives that are likely to impact and improve our world across the many fields of medicine and public health.
Cancer prevention is but one of those areas, and I am thankful for the work we do and proud of our members who lead in this space. We often speak about the value of ACPM membership and the nurturing relationships we forge during our time together. We speak about professional development, training, education and what we learn from our ACPM role models and mentors. We speak about how we translate science and help put prevention into practice across our health care system and in our communities. We speak about our core values as a medical society and how we have opportunities to improve the world in which we live. But, it is our advocacy and leadership on critical public health, medical and societal issues that often matters the most. They are all the faces of ACPM – and dimensions of what a full ACPM member experience can and ought to be – but I find our voice on the most important matters in our lives to be a salve for the soul.
Ryung Suh, MD, MPP, MBA, MPH, FACPM
President-Elect