populations . Because frankly , not a lot of underserved populations walk in the door of Mass General . But when I compare that to what is going on at UAB , it is just standard procedure here that 20-30 percent of the population is African American or Latino . To me , this was an added bonus . For someone who has cared for cancer patients for 30 years to then expand that to patients who might spend their entire cancer experience without seeing a clinical trial , it is really rewarding .
Hitting the Ground Running
In the six months Dr . Birrer has been here , he has been getting to know Birmingham and all the entities that make the UAB Cancer Center work . Beyond onboarding and managing a heavy administrative schedule , Dr . Birrer is also seeing patients . In fact , what sealed the deal for him was in addition to being director of the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center , he will also be heading up the cancer service line , giving him the opportunity to directly impact the decisions affecting patient care .
Q : What does it mean to have this added role to your position as director ?
A : I cannot stress enough how important it is . Most cancer center directors are not involved in the service line . Cancer care for the patients in the hospital is completely off their radar , and they have next to no ability to impact that care . This approach is what limits the effectiveness of many cancer centers . We will not suffer from that if we design the cancer service line correctly , and I will be in charge of that . Q : What are the areas that you want to improve ? A : I think there ’ s two major clinical directions . One is expanding on and perfecting the clinical care of cancer patients at the UAB Cancer Center . We need more people when it comes to expert clinicians for multiple different disease sites , so we will be doing a lot of aggressive hiring in terms of building teams that can effectively treat cancer patients . Breast health clinic does it quite well here so we will model it on that . We want a multidisciplinary team : a surgeon , a clinical oncologist , a radiation oncologist , to see our patients . Patients want an expert in their field . If they have lung cancer , they don ’ t want to be seeing a breast cancer doctor , they want an expert for their specific cancer , and they want the opinions of experts who come at the disease from different angles — surgery , radiation , and medicine .
We will also be expanding our precision oncology effort , conducting genetic tumor profiling for cancer patients to find the best therapeutic option for them . We are doing some of
it but not all of it . I would like to have some of the molecular genotyping done in house . Right now , we have three different platforms , and they all work in different ways . I do think the optimal approach is to have a robust genomic platform sitting right at UAB . I would certainly continue the relationships we have built , but the long-term vision would be that we would supply it ourselves . If we developed this platform at UAB , it could theoretically be used throughout the state of Alabama and become the center for the South . Q : How about from a research standpoint ? A : I think there will be a serious effort to increase our bench strength . If you look at some of our programs like inflammation , immunology , and immunotherapy , there is great science but it isn ’ t deep in terms of personnel . So we need to hire more people , we can ’ t have programs where if one person leaves the program , it then disappears . So we are going to work on that .
Cancer prevention is a diamond in the rough here . Most cancer prevention programs tend to be “ fluffy science ” and people don ’ t believe it , but that ’ s not true here .
It is not very common that cancer centers have a very robust drug discovery program , and we do here at UAB . With the help of Southern Research , Alabama Drug Discovery Alliance , and our other partnerships , we want to continue to encourage and support our experimental therapeutics program . Q : What are our opportunities to educate here ? A : The opportunities to educate here at UAB are extensive . The Cancer Center itself has a number of programs for outreach which are particularly relevant for underserved
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