Andrew Hendifar, MD, is currently the Medical Director of Pancreatic Cancer at Samuel Oschin Comprehensive Cancer Center and an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Dr. Hendifar received his medical degree from Tulane University and he did his residency in Internal Medicine at Los Angeles County, the USC Medical Center, followed by a fellowship in Hematology and Oncology from the University of Southern California. At Cedars Sinai he also leads the Gastrointestinal Disease Research Group and is the Program Director of the Hematology and Oncology Fellowship Program. His research focuses on developing new therapies for pancreatic cancer and neuroendocrine tumors. He is a member of the ASCO Society and North American Neuroendocrine Tumor Society.

Pearls of Wisdom:

• Oncology is really where the humanistic values of medicine collide with the scientific values.
• It's important that you have more than one role model because there's never gonna be one person that kind of encapsulates all that you want to be or all that you wanna accomplish.
• Being successful in research does not necessarily mean having a eureka moment but actually doing the work that it takes to bring a project to completion.
• It's very important for cancer physicians to take care of themselves spiritually and physically.
• One day, people are going to say, "thank God I have pancreas cancer" instead of saying, "I can't believe I have pancreas cancer." That's my goal.