West Wind (audio)

Dr. West questions Dr. Gideon Blumenthal of the FDA about how he and his team there struggle to provide timely access to emerging cancer treatments, while also debating questions of the proper thresholds for efficacy and safety.

Drs. Gideon Blumenthal & Jack West discuss his early career interests and trajectory from medical oncology training at the NIH to joining the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) to regulate oncology drugs.

Dr. Jack West provides a brief summary of key findings & limitations of two new papers just out in JAMA Oncology (Theelen et al & Bauml et al.) that evaluate the potential benefit of preceding immunotherapy with radiation in patients with advanced NSCLC.

Dr. Jack West speaks with Dr. Sandip Patel about how molecular oncology has changed outcomes in cancer care, but also how we face great difficulty in getting the knowledge & practice patterns out to communities.

Drs. Sandip Patel & host Jack West track his early interest in medicine and even oncology & the importance of good communication & value of effective use of language when working with patients with cancer.

Dr. West speaks with Dr. Suzanne Dahlberg about her path into biostatistics, leadership in shaping trials with ECOG & Dana Farber Cancer Institute, & changing endpoints & trial designs in an era of molecular oncology.

Host Dr. Jack West questions Dr.. Puneeth Iyengar, radiation oncologist at UT-Southwestern, about proton beam radiation therapy, risks & benefits of cranial irradiation, & local ablative therapy for local consolidation therapy for oligometastatic disease.

Dr. Puneeth Iyengar talks with Dr. Jack West about growing up Indian in Louisiana, his training path from Boston to New York before returning to Texas, his entry into radiation oncology, & how the field is adapting to changes in cancer care.

Dr. Jack West speaks with Dr. Esther Choo, academic ER specialist at OHSU in Portland, about her commitment to gender equity in medicine, gender & racial disparities, social & mass media outreach, & her leadership in the Times Up Healthcare movement.

Dr. Esther Choo, ER Physician at OHSU in Portland, speaks with Dr. Jack West about being an outsider growing up, as well as her path into medicine & interest in emergency medicine, where care intersects with broad social issues.

Drs. William Dale & Jack West, both from City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center, reflect on the challenges of having patients & fellow health care professionals welcome integration of supportive care alongside aggressive anti-cancer treatments.

Dr. William Dale from City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center discusses with host Jack West how he became interested in supportive care & geriatric oncology, as well as societal biases in treating older patients.

Dr. Chadi Nabhan & host Jack West consider the challenge of pruning career activities after struggling to define priorities & say no to opportunities; Dr. Nabhan reviews the value of real world evidence in evaluating cancer treatments.

Dr. Chadi Nabhan speaks with host Jack West & reviews his circuitous course from medical training in Syria to lymphoma specialist & rising administrator in Chicago to his decision to pursue an MBA, leading him into a world of the business of health care.

Lecia Sequist, MD, MPH of Massachusetts General Hospital & Harvard Medical School debriefs with host Dr. Jack West about key ASCO 2019 findings in EGFR mutation-positive NSCLC & her campaign for the IASLC Board of Directors.

Lecia Sequist, MD, MPH of Massachusetts General Hospital & Harvard Medical School speaks with Dr. Jack West about the trajectory of her early career and focusing on both the science of medicine & practical concerns while speaking out on social media.

Dr. Sumanta (Monty) Pal of City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center describes his precocious entry into medicine, the tremendous opportunities it has afforded him in ASCO leadership and GU oncology, his commitment to mentorship, & his work/life balance.

Drs. Heather Wakelee and Jack West review how she entered & became a leader in thoracic oncology, her prioritization of mentorship, & her efforts to continue the strong momentum of the International Association of the Study of Lung Cancer (IASLC).

Dr. West speaks with Dr. Ross Camidge about the experience of contributing to the NCCN guidelines, developing the ATOMIC network as a novel platform for lung cancer research, & the increasing importance of online patient molecularly defined groups.

Dr. Ross Camidge from the University of Colorado discusses his career trajectory, how cancer research in narrow molecularly defined populations has evolved, challenges in molecular oncology practice, & the brain as a new frontier for treatment efficacy.