Newswise — ARLINGTON, Va., July 19, 2017 — The members of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO) have elected three new officers to ASTRO’s Board of Directors and three members to serve on the medical society’s Nominating Committee. The newly elected President-elect, Health Policy Council Vice-chair, Science Council Vice-chair and Nominating Committee members will begin their terms at the Annual Business Meeting held during ASTRO’s 59th Annual Meeting in San Diego, September 24-27.
The following radiation oncologists were elected to the Board of Directors:
- President-elect: Theodore L. DeWeese, MD, FASTRO, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore
- Health Policy Council Vice-chair: William Hartsell, MD, FASTRO, Northwestern Medicine, Chicago Proton Center, Chicago
- Science Council Vice-chair: Catherine Park, MD, University of California, San Francisco
The following physicians and scientists were elected to the Nominating Committee:
- Nominating Committee Academic Physician: Charles Thomas, MD, Oregon Health and Science University, Portland, Oregon
- Nominating Committee Community Practice Physician: Paul Sperduto, MD, MPP, FASTRO, Minneapolis Radiation Oncology PA, Minneapolis
- Nominating Committee Radiobiologist: Jacqueline P. Williams, PhD, FASTRO, University of Rochester Medical Center, Rochester, New York
“The cancer care community is undergoing a seismic shift, as we determine what the next chapter will be. Radiation oncology is a key part of many of these discussions—from immunotherapy combinations to health care reform. These demonstrated leaders will help guide the 10,000-plus ASTRO members and our field on key issues of science, health policy and patient care,” said David C. Beyer, MD, FASTRO, Chair of ASTRO’s Board of Directors.
Dr. Theodore L. DeWeese (President-elect) is Vice President for Johns Hopkins Medicine and the Sidney Kimmel Professor and Chair of the department of radiation oncology and molecular radiation sciences at Johns Hopkins University, where he treats men with prostate cancer. He is a funded laboratory researcher and also leads therapeutic and non-therapeutic clinical trials for men with prostate cancer. He is an advisory board member of several prominent cancer centers and the Chair of the ASTRO Science Council.
Dr. DeWeese is dedicated to actively promoting the central role of radiation oncology in the cancer care continuum. He has established partnerships with other medical societies and collaborative funding opportunities to grow the pipeline of young cancer researchers. He also helped build scientific programs at annual meetings for the nation’s leading cancer societies, as Chair of the ASTRO Annual Meeting Scientific Committee for three years and as a member of the planning committees for the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meetings.
Dr. DeWeese received his medical degree with honors from the University of Colorado School of Medicine and served as chief resident and a post-doctoral laboratory research fellow at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine before joining its faculty in 1995. He also holds professor appointments in the departments of urology and oncology, and a joint appointment in environmental health sciences at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Dr. Catherine Park (Science Council Vice-chair) is professor and Chair of the department of radiation oncology at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), where her focus is breast cancer. Dr. Park has been instrumental in shaping the scientific content at major ASTRO meetings; she has served as Chair and Vice-chair of the Best of ASTRO meeting; as Chair and Vice-chair of the Annual Meeting Education Committee; and as a longstanding member of the Annual Meeting Steering Committee.
Dr. Park received her medical degree from the University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of California Berkeley. She completed a residency in radiation oncology at Harvard Medical School’s Joint Center for Radiation Therapy and an internship in internal medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Boston. She also is an attending physician at the UCSF Medical Center and previously was faculty biologist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Dr. William Hartsell (Health Policy Council Vice-chair) is a radiation oncologist at the Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital, medical director of the Northwestern Medicine Chicago Proton Center and a partner in Radiation Oncology Consultants, Ltd. in Chicago. For more than a decade, Dr. Hartsell has worked with ASTRO to help shape health policy, specifically in code development and utilization for medical billing. He is the current ASTRO advisor to the American Medical Association’s CPT® (Current Procedural Terminology) panel, which is responsible for the development of new codes.
Dr. Hartsell earned his MD and his Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma. He completed a residency in radiation oncology at Rush University in Chicago, where he also held his first faculty appointment. Before joining Northwestern and the Chicago Cancer Hospital, he was an associate professor of radiation oncology at the University of Tennessee.
For more information about ASTRO’s 59th Annual Meeting, visit www.astro.org/AnnualMeeting. For press registration and news briefing information for the meeting, visit www.astro.org/AMPress.
ABOUT ASTRO
ASTRO is the premier radiation oncology society in the world, with more than 10,000 members who are physicians, nurses, biologists, physicists, radiation therapists, dosimetrists and other health care professionals who specialize in treating patients with radiation therapies. As the leading organization in radiation oncology, the Society is dedicated to improving patient care through professional education and training, support for clinical practice and health policy standards, advancement of science and research, and advocacy. ASTRO publishes three medical journals, International Journal of Radiation Oncology • Biology • Physics (www.redjournal.org), Practical Radiation Oncology (www.practicalradonc.org) and Advances in Radiation Oncology (www.advancesradonc.org); developed and maintains an extensive patient website, RT Answers (www.rtanswers.org); and created the Radiation Oncology Institute (www.roinstitute.org), a nonprofit foundation to support research and education efforts around the world that enhance and confirm the critical role of radiation therapy in improving cancer treatment. To learn more about ASTRO, visit www.astro.org.
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