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Cancer Society's Next President Sees Medicine in Family Terms

Posted on: Saturday, 25 March 2006, 12:00 CST

By Dan Kelly, Reading Eagle, Pa.

Mar. 25--When Dr. Richard C. Wender takes the reins of the American Cancer Society in the fall, he expects family medicine as we know it to change for the better.

"At least that's my goal," he said.

Wender of Merion, Montgomery County, got a head start on his goal Friday morning when he presented a onehour lecture to about 50 family-medicine specialists at Reading Hospital.

During the lecture he debunked the use of a digital rectal exam in detecting certain cancers, and said that in five years, testing procedures now used to detect colon cancer no longer will be used because new, better tests already are available.

"And they're already being covered by health insurers even though they are more expensive," Wender said.

He had some advice for patients, too.

"One of the best ways to protect your health and life is to find a trusted source of regular medical care -- whether it's a doctor, nurse practitioner, physicians assistant -- and use it," he said. "Take advantage of it.

"Most of what we are doing to save peoples' lives today is simply applying things we already know. Whether it's cancer, diabetes, obesity and heart disease, we already know what we need to do. The challenge is to take those steps."

Wender, alumni professor and chairman of the department of family medicine at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia, is no stranger to Reading Hospital.

When he was a medical student at the University of Pennsylvania and decided he wanted to focus on family medicine, he learned that Penn did not offer the specialty.

"Most of the older teaching institutions are slow to recognize new specialties," Wender said. "I was given a list of community hospitals that offered a specialty and I chose Reading."

Later in his career, Wender said he was asked to edit a family-medicine journal published by the American Cancer Society.

"I always wondered who these volunteers were that helped run the ACS and then I realized I was one of them," Wender said.

As the first family-medicine specialist elected president of the American Cancer Society, Wender said he hopes to encourage family doctors to develop a system of recommending cancer screening tests to all of their patients when appropriate.

"A lot of times you only see the patient when they come in for a cold," Wender said. "We need to tell even these people that they really should have certain tests to rule out some things.

"If there is no system in place, we are less likely to make those recommendations."

Wender said his successor, who already has been named, will be the first non-physician to head the 87-year-old cancer society.

"The American Center Society clearly has gone from a society created by cancer specialists to improve cancer treatment to an agency dedicated to improving public health," Wender said.

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Copyright (c) 2006, Reading Eagle, Pa.

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Source: Reading Eagle

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