Presenter Bios
David R. Byrd
David R. Byrd, MD, is a Professor of Surgery and the director of the Melanoma Center at the University of Washington. Dr. Byrd is also the Vice Chair of the American Joint Committee on Cancer and an editor of the 7th edition Cancer Staging Manual. Dr. Byrd is the founder and Attending Surgeon Harborview Medical Center Breast Clinic Seattle, Washington. He was the first surgeon to bring the sentinel lymph node biopsy technique to the Northwest. He is an expert in many surgical procedures, including the Whipple procedure used in pancreas cancer treatment. His clinical interests include Surgical oncology; thyroid, parathyroid, and adrenal neoplasms; gastrointestinal cancers, pancreatic cancer, melanoma, breast cancer, sarcoma. Dr. Byrd's research interests are molecular changes in pancreatic cancer; genetic and clinical studies on melanoma; lymphatic mapping in breast cancer and melanoma.
Asa Carter
Asa Carter, CTR is a Certified Cancer Registrar with more than 25 years of experience in the cancer registry field. Since earning the CTR in 1984 Asa has served as field staff for the State Health Registry of Iowa, a member of the SEER Program of the National Cancer Institute, as well as hospital based registrar at both community-based and teaching hospitals approved by the Commission on Cancer. Asa is currently enrolled at North Park University, Chicago IL where she is completing a Bachelor of Arts degree in Non Profit Management.
Asa joined the staff of the Commission on Cancer in 1991. In her position of Manager, Accreditation and Standards she manages the development and implementation of CoC cancer program standards, facilitates the scheduling and evaluation of cancer programs at the more than 1400 CoC-accredited facilities, and oversees the Web-based Inquiry and Response system which is used to provide consistent answers to questions and interpretations of the Commission's program and data standards.
Sam S. Chang
Sam S. Chang, MD, is an associate professor in the Department of Urologic Surgery at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, Tennessee and also the chair of the AJCC Genitourinary Task Force.
Dr Chang earned his undergraduate degree at Princeton University and his medical degree from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. He completed residencies in general surgery and urologic surgery at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, followed by a fellowship in urologic oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, New York. He is board certified by the American Board of Urology.
Dr Chang holds leadership positions with several professional organizations, including chair of the Genitourinary Task Force for the American Joint Committee on Cancer, regional leader of the Southeastern Section of the American Urological Association (AUA) Young Leadership Committee, member of the board of advisors for the Men's Health Network, chair of the Prostate Cancer Core Curriculum for the AUA, and facilitator of the Urologic Malignancy Follow-Up Guidelines Panel for the AUA. He is also a representative of the Society of Urologic Oncology for the American Joint Committee on Cancer, panel member for the Prostate Cancer Foundation Award Committee for the AUA, member of the Genitourinary Tumors Cancer Protocol Review Panel for the College of American Pathologists, member of the Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network Scientific Advisory Board, member of the AUA/European Association of Urology Academic Fellowship Committee, member of the Prostate Cancer Task Force - National Cancer Institute GU Steering Committee, abstract reviewer for the American Urological Association annual meeting, and panel member for the National Cancer Institute Prostate Cancer Task Force Genitourinary Steering Committee.
Dr Chang is a member of the American Association for Cancer Research, AUA, Society of Urologic Oncology, and American Association of Clinical Urologists. He has received several awards and is listed in Castle Connolly America's Top Doctors for Cancer, Best Doctors in America, Who's Who in America, and Who's Who in Medicine and Healthcare.
Dr Chang has been a principal investigator or subinvestigator for nearly 30 grant-supported research studies and has published more than 120 journal articles and 19 book chapters. He is an editorial board member for Family Urology, Prostate Cancer and Prostatic Diseases, and Postgraduate Medicine, and is a reviewer for numerous journals, including Cancer, Cancer Research, Journal of Urology, and International Journal of Cancer.
Daniel G, Coit
Daniel G, Coit, MD, FACS is a surgical oncologist whose primary area of clinical and research interest is melanoma. In 1991, he introduced lymph-node mapping and sentinel lymph-node biopsy for melanoma and other selected skin cancers. Together, these procedures can determine during surgery whether a tumor has spread to surrounding lymph nodes. Using lymph node mapping, physicians can pinpoint the precise lymph node into which a nearby tumor is likely to travel first (called the sentinel node). If a biopsy of the sentinel node indicates cancer spread, the surrounding lymph nodes are removed. But if there is no evidence of cancer in the sentinel node, patients are spared from additional lymph node surgery.
Dr. Coit's research has focused primarily on detecting and defining the clinical significance of individual melanoma cells in the sentinel lymph nodes, blood, and bone marrow of melanoma patients, with the goal of identifying patients at highest risk of cancer recurrence following surgery to remove a melanoma.
Dr. Coit served as Chief of the Gastric and Mixed Tumor Service in Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center's (MSKCC) Department of Surgery from 1997 until October 2003. This service focused primarily on the surgical management of less common malignancies, including melanoma, sarcoma, gastric cancer, and pancreatic cancer, and also provides surgical support for the Lymphoma Service.
He currently serves as a co-leader of the MSKCC Melanoma Disease Management Team -- a multidisciplinary team of surgeons, medical oncologists, pathologists, and other medical professionals who specialize in the diagnosis and treatment of melanoma. On a national and international level, he is involved in advancing new ways to diagnose and treat melanoma as a member of the American Joint Commission on Cancer Melanoma Staging Committee, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network Melanoma Advisory Group, the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer Melanoma Working Group, the American College of Surgeons Oncology Group's Melanoma Working Group, and the World Health Organization Melanoma Committee.
Stephen J. Dreyer
Stephen J. Dreyer, MD is a graduate of Creighton University Medical School and completed his general surgery residency at Truman Medical Center in Kansas City, Missouri. He is a Fellow in the American College of Surgeons and has practiced in Fremont, Nebraska since 1982.
One of his special areas of interest has been the surgical management of the cancer patient and providing the complete spectrum of services that their care requires. To this end, he worked with members of the Fremont Area Medical Center healthcare staff to establish a cancer program at that facility. In 1996, that program was accredited by the Commission on Cancer, and he has served as the Cancer Liaison Physician in that program for the past 14 years.
In 2007, Dr. Dreyer was appointed the Nebraska State Chair as part of the Cancer Liaison Program. In addition to providing a support service to the Cancer Liaison Physicians at each cancer program in this state, he plays an active role in implementing new initiatives from the Commission on Cancer that are designed to improve the process of care.
Recently Dr. Dreyer was selected as an Ambassador for the Commission on Cancer to promote the development of accredited cancer programs in regions of the United States lacking accredited centers.
Greer Gay
Greer Gay is manager of the research unit of the NCDB and worked at the American College of Surgeons since January 2001. Greer graduated from Emory University’s College of Nursing, received her doctorate in health administration/health policy at the University of South Carolina’s School of Public Health, and pursued a post-doctorate in healthcare finance/quality improvement at Johns Hopkins University.
She has served as a clinical director and clinical specialist in the Greenville Hospital System in South Carolina. Prior to joining the American College of Surgeons, she taught in graduate health administration programs at Texas A & M, University of Memphis, University of Arkansas at Little Rock, and University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
During the past nine years, the focus of her research has been in cancer, utilizing the extensive data available in the NCDB. She has been integral in the work that has produced the Cancer Program Practice Profile Reports (CP3R), an electronic tool that provides feedback to the CoC-accredited programs on delivery of care to breast, colon, and rectal cancer cases at their own facility and permits comparisons of practice for similar types of hospitals as well as at the state, region, and national levels.
Peter Goldstraw
Peter Goldstraw, MD, was born in 1945 and graduated at the University of Birmingham in 1968. After training in Scotland and South Africa he was appointed Consultant Thoracic Surgeon to the Royal Brompton Hospital in 1979. He is Professor of Thoracic Surgery at Imperial College London and has been visiting Professor in Cape Town, Toronto, Boston, St Louis, the Mayo Clinic, University of Virginia, MD Anderson and Singapore. He has given over 370 lectures at 170 International and 80 National/Local conferences.
Dr. Goldstraw was awarded the Price Thomas Gold Medal by the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 2004, a Lifetime Achievement Award by the British Thoracic Oncology Group in 2006, honorary membership of the European Society of Thoracic Surgeons and the Merit Award of the IASLC in 2007.
He has published 260 articles in peer-reviewed journals and over 50 chapters in specialist textbooks. He has been on the editorial board of the Annals of Thoracic Surgery, Thorax, the Journal of Cardiovascular Surgery, European Journal of Surgical Oncology and Lung Cancer, and a reviewer for many international journals. He has held office in the Society of Cardiothoracic Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland, the British Thoracic Society, the European Respiratory Society, the Royal Society of Medicine, was a founding member and is past President of the European Society of Thoracic Surgeons. He is an honorary member of specialist societies in Argentina, Belgium, Greece and North America. He has been the Chairman of the UK Cardiothoracic Training Committee, a member of the European Board of Thoracic Surgery and National representative to the European Union of Medical Specialists section of Cardiothoracic Surgery. He is a member of the UICC TNM Prognostic Factors Committee, their representative at the AJCC and section editor for Lung and Pleural Tumors in the 7th Edition of TNM and the TNM Supplement.
Daniel Fleming Hayes
Daniel Fleming Hayes, M.D. is the Clinical Director of the Breast Oncology Program at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center (UM CCC), where he is the Stuart B. Padnos Professor of Breast Cancer Research. He is also the chair of the AJCC Breast Task Force and the lead author of the Breast chapter in the 7th Edition Cancer Staging Manual.
Dr. Hayes received a bachelor's degree (1974) and a master's degree (1977) at Indiana University. He received his M.D. from the Indiana University School of Medicine in 1979, followed by a residency in internal medicine at the UT HSC at Dallas, Texas (Parkland Memorial and affiliated hospitals). He served a fellowship in medical oncology from 1982-1985 at Harvard's Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. In 1992, he assumed the role as the Medical Director of the Breast Evaluation Center at DFCI. He held that title until 1996, when he moved to the Georgetown University Lombardi Cancer Center. In 2001, Dr. Hayes joined the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center (UM CCC) and continues treating patients and doing research in translational science.
Dr. Hayes and colleagues published the first reports concerning the development of the CA15-3 blood test, which is currently used world-wide to evaluate patients with breast cancer. He has become an internationally recognized leader in the use of this and other tumor markers, such as HER-2, circulating tumor cells and pharmacogenomics. In 2007, he was awarded the American Society of Clinical Oncology's Gianni Bonadonna Breast Cancer Award.
He is Chair of the Breast Cancer Translational Medicine Committee of the Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG); Chair of the Correlative Sciences Committee of the U.S. Breast Cancer Intergroup, and co-chairs the Expert Panel for Tumor Marker Practice Guidelines for the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO).
Jerry Hussong
Jerry Hussong, MD, FCAP is a board certified pathologist affiliated with Cedars Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles CA. He is a graduate of Northwestern University Medical School and completed his internship and residency at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, Illinois.
Julio Ibarra, MD, a native of Mexico, earned his medical degree from the National University of Mexico (UNAM) and did a year of rotating internship. Then decided to come to the
Dr Ibarra has published several papers in peer reviewed journals and has participates in several National and international symposia on breast cancer related topics. He has been included in Best Doctors of Orange County as a “Pathologist” in 1998, 2001 and 2004. Also he has been named in Best Doctors in America in 1998, 2001, and 2004-2007. Dr Ibarra has served in the American Society of Breast Disease (ASBD) in different roles since 1999 including being President for the period of 2007-2008. In the ASBD Dr Ibarra was instrumental in the development of the Clearinghouse for Breast Disease, a web based repository of all available guidelines/statements involving the different disciplines that participate in breast cancer diagnosis and treatment.
J. Milburn Jessup
J. Milburn Jessup, MD is the Chair of the AJCC Hindgut Task Force. He is a surgical oncologist and scientist who is part of the Laboratory of Experimental Carcinogenesis as an Adjunct Investigator in CCR. He is also Chief of the Diagnostics Evaluation Branch of the Cancer Diagnosis Program in DCTD. In 25 years of practice he focused on the multidisciplinary treatment of GI and breast cancer, melanoma and soft tissue/skeletal sarcomas in several different academic settings. He has led a research effort to study the mechanisms by which human colorectal carcinomas form hepatic metastasis and identified roles for the marker Carcinoembryonic Antigen in modulating inflammatory responses and promoting metastasis. He has been involved for over a decade with the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer and served as Chair of the National Cancer Data Committee that oversees hospital tumor registries throughout the US. Dr. Jessup also aids investigators in facilitating the development of biomarkers for clinical use in patients with cancer.
Jerri Linn Phillips
Jerri Linn Phillips received a B.A in Sociology at Grinnell College (Iowa) and an M.A. in Sociology at the University of Maryland. She became a C.T.R. in 1988 while working as a Research Analyst at the Wisconsin Cancer Reporing System. She began working for the CoC's National Cancer Data Base in 1995 where she is now manager of the Information, Technology, and Data Standards section. She is a co-editor of Facility Oncology Registry Data Standards (FORDS), has written chapters for Cancer Registries Management Principles and Practice and Central Cancer Registries Design, Management and Use, and has a number of published articles.
Jatin P. Shah
Professor Jatin P. Shah graduated from the Medical College of MS University in Baroda, India, and received his training in Surgical Oncology and Head and Neck Surgery at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He is Professor of Surgery, at the Weil Medical College of Cornell University, and Chief of the Head and Neck Service, Leader of the Head and Neck Disease Management Team, and holds The Elliott W. Strong Chair in Head and Neck Oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.
Dr Shah is a national and international leader in the field of head and neck surgery, having served as President of The New York Cancer Society, The New York Head and Neck Society, The Society of Head and Neck Surgeons, The North American Skull Base Society and the International Academy of Oral Oncology. He is Founder of The International Federation of Head and Neck Oncologic Societies. He currently serves as Chairman of the AJCC task force on Head and Neck. He was Chairman of the Joint Council for advanced training in head and neck oncologic surgery in the USA and was also Chairman of The 4th International Conference on Head and Neck Cancer in Toronto in 1996. He has served in varying capacities for The American Board of Surgery, and The American College of Surgeons.
Andrew K. Stewart
Andrew K. Stewart provides managerial oversight for the American College of Surgeons National Cancer Data Base. The NCDB is a repository of hospital-based cancer registry data that collects over 1,000,000 cases (≈70%) of the incident diagnosed malignancies in the United States annually. He serves on the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries Uniform Data Standards Committee, which he has chaired for five of the past eight years. Andrew has authored or co-authored almost 50 peer reviewed manuscripts, and was integrally involved in the development and assessment of the National Quality Forum's evidence based quality of care measures for breast and colorectal cancers. He is currently interested in the development and implementation of quality of cancer care reporting tools for use by providers to assess and monitor the care provided to cancer patients at the local level.