A panel of medical experts discuss the fight of confronting cancer.
Dr. Ashutosh K. Tewari, Director, Prostrate Cancer Institute and the Lefrak Robotic Surgery Center, Weill Cornell Medical College
Dr. Sameer Kaul, Senior Surgical Oncologist, Indraprastra Apollo
Yuvraj Singh, Indian International Cricketer
Chair: James Naughtie, Radio Presenter, BBC
Bio
Sameer Kaul
Dr. Sameer Kaul was brought up in Srinagar, Kashmir where he studied at the Burn Hall School. His basic degree in medicine was acquired at the Govt. Medical College, Srinagar in 1978. Soon work at the Tata Memorial Hospital, Mumbai lead to a Master degree in Surgical Oncology. Having acquired varied surgical skills at Nanavati Hospital, Jaslok Hospital, KEM Hospital and Beach Candy Hospital in Mumbai, he left for London to work at the Royal Marsden Cancer Hospital. His work lead to an Oncology Fellowship, whereafter he returned to work in Delhi, initially at Batra Hospital and now for the last 15 years at Apollo Cancer Institute. He heads SURGICAL ONCOLOGY UNIT I comprised of half a dozen consultants and other junior consultants and is certainly among the busiest oncology division in India. He conducts monthly outpatient clinics in Apollo Cancer Institute, New Delhi, Artemis hospital, Gurgaon, Kashmir Valley & Mauritius. His interest lies in popularizing innovative techniques in oncology. Port insertion, Primary Reconstruction for Ca Breast, and now Radio Frequency Ablation owe it to his pioneering efforts in India. An avid speaker keenly sought in this region for his original thought and his ability to ask question conventional beliefs and practices in oncology.
He is also Founder President of a successful non-governmental organization called Breast Cancer Patients Benefit Foundation. The foundation works in the area of offering better cancer care to economically under privileged patients in India, spreads awareness about this dreaded disease, run a Central Drug Repository and most importantly trains clinicians in the field of oncology across India and the neighboring countries often leading up to fellowship.
Yet another diverse but passionate part of his life is his active participation in regional politics in J&K State. He currently functions as the Chief National Spokesperson for the People Democratic Party, J&K.
James Naughtie
Dr. Howard I. Scher
Howard I. Scher, MD is Chief of the Genitourinary Oncology Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Professor of Medicine at the Weill Cornell Medical College. An internationally recognized investigator, Dr. Scher has helped elucidate key molecular and genetic features of prostate cancer and has translated these insights into the evaluation of novel targeted agents in the clinic. Most recently, he led the clinical development of enzalutamide (MDV3100), a novel androgen-receptor signaling inhibitor targeting a key driver of prostate cancer growth. His work also focuses on developing non-invasive methods of determining whether targeted therapies are working.
Dr. Scher is a member of the Prostate Cancer Clinical Trials Working Group and led an international effort to standardize the design and analysis of phase II trials. He is also principal investigator of the NIH-supported Specialized Program of Research Excellence (SPORE) in Prostate Cancer and the Prostate Cancer Clinical Trials Consortium, a multi-center research collaborative funded by the Department of Defense and the Prostate Cancer Foundation.
Dr. Scher is widely published, the recipient of numerous awards, and the first incumbent of the D. Wayne Calloway Chair in Urologic Oncology.
Yuvraj Singh
Dr. Ashutosh K. Tewari
Dr. Tewari is a tenured professor at Weill Cornell Medical College, as well as the Director of the Prostate Cancer Institute and the Director of the Lefrak Center for Robotic Surgery. Over the past several years Dr. Tewari has studied various aspects of prostate cancer including surgical prostate anatomy, genetic risk profiling, epidemiology, racial disparities, risk modeling and survivorship issues. To further his commitment to the betterment of surgical outcomes, Dr. Tewari has worked on improving the accuracy of his staging efforts and focused on novel imaging approaches and developing predictive modeling tools. Clinically, he has performed several thousand robotic prostate cancer surgeries and has established a prostate bio repository at the Prostate Cancer Institute, New York. His current research is funded by awards from the Ronald P. Lynch Chair Endowment of Urologic Oncology, the Richard S. and Karen Lefrak Endowment Fund, the National Institute of Health the Prostate Cancer Foundation, and several other federal and industry grants. Dr. Tewari’s current research projects focus on a) the development of new surgical techniques and modifications to examine functional and oncological improvements in prostate cancer surgery; b) the genetic hallmark of cancer and utilizing novel molecular biology techniques to identify aggressive phenotypes of prostate cancer; c) evaluating molecular differences to explain racial disparities in outcomes; d) developing novel approaches for describing radiological phenotypes of aggressive prostate cancer; e) and exploring the utility of multi-parameteric MRI as the Male “Prostatogram” for optimal management of prostate cancer and monitoring active surveillance patients.
Dr. Ashutosh K. Tewari and Dr. Sameer Kaul discuss whether or not doctors employ the same treatments methods on themselves as they do on their own patients, specifically when it comes to fighting cancer.
