Today’s episode features doctor Robert Winn, director of VCU Massey Cancer Center, and doctor John Stewart, founding director of LSU Health LCMC Health Cancer Center, who speak with Wayne A.I. Frederick, president of Howard University. This interview focuses on the legacy of LaSalle Leffall, a Howard University surgical oncologist. Stewart and Frederick were both mentored by Leffall.

A full transcript of this conversation is available here: https://cancerhistoryproject.com/article/wayne-frederick-on-the-legacy-of-lasalle-leffall-jr/ 

Dr. Edith P. Mitchell came a long way from growing up on a Tennessee farm, to becoming a brigadier general and serving on the President’s Cancer Panel.

“It was making a plan, having a plan, and all of us had similar type plans that we needed to leave the farm—yes I grew up on a farm—and get out of town,” Mitchell, member of the President’s Cancer Panel, clinical professor of medicine and medical oncology, director of the Center to Eliminate Cancer Disparities, and associate director of diversity affairs at Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson University. “Yes, you have success, but look back, the students, students, the college students, the medical students, look back and pull somebody behind you, pull them up.”

Mitchell spoke with Dr. Robert Winn, director of VCU Massey Cancer Center and Dr. John Stewart, founding director of LSU Health/LCMC Health Cancer Center.

When Mitchell attended medical school at Virginia Commonwealth University, then called Medical College of Virginia, she was given a military scholarship and was supposed to give the Air Force two years of service.

She became interested in health policy and military medicine and remained in the Air Force. When thinking about retirement after 20 years of service, Mitchell, a colonel at the time, learned she was up for a promotion.

The only problem? Her competition, mainly white men, had all been to flight school.

“Most people go to flight school in their 20s, right? I was in my 40s with two teenage kids. So what did I do? I signed up for flight school. I finished. I got my flight wings and my certification in aerospace medicine,” Mitchell said. “Very few people know that I am certified in aerospace medicine, but what happened was, I was selected. I am the first woman doctor ever to be promoted to brigadier general in the history of the Air Force.”

This story is part of a series of interviews conducted by Robert Winn, guest editor of the Cancer History Project during Black History Month.

A transcript of this conversation is available here: https://cancerhistoryproject.com/people/edith-mitchell-on-her-path-from-tennessee-farm-to-becoming-a-cancer-doctor-and-brigadier-general/

In today’s episode, Dr. Robert Winn, director of VCU Massey Cancer Center, and Dr. John Stewart, founding director of LSU Health/LCMC Health Cancer Center, speak with Dr. Harold Freeman, the father of patient navigation.

Harold Freeman had big plans after he finished his residency at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in 1968. He planned to cut cancer out of Harlem.

However, Freeman’s patients, Harlem residents who were poor and Black, often sought treatment too late. Freeman asked why—and aimed to fix this. This led to Memorial Sloan Kettering’s Breast Examination Center of Harlem, of which Freeman became the founding director. As president of the American Cancer Society in 1988, he published a study, "Cancer in the socioeconomically disadvantaged," exploring for the first time how poverty contributes to untreated cancers. All of this work, and his concerns about racial injustice, led to Freeman’s founding of patient navigation, an advance in helping people who face disparities address cancer.

This recording is part of a series of interviews conducted by Robert Winn, guest editor of the Cancer History Project during Black History Month. You can read the transcript of this recording here: cancerhistoryproject.com/people/harold-freeman-cutting-cancer-out-of-harlem

This is a trailer episode for the Cancer History Project's new podcast, which will explore oral histories and interviews with the people who have shaped oncology as we know it. 

The Cancer History Project is a unique, collaborative, historical resource. Our contributors are cancer centers and other organizations who have had a role in shaping or recording the history of oncology. Since our launch in 2021, we have collected almost 12,000 records, and they are all available online, for free at CancerHistoryProject.com.

The Cancer History Project is an initiative by The Cancer Letter, the longest-running oncology news publication, established in 1973. This is an ongoing project and would not be possible without the input and materials provided by our editorial board, our contributors, and the support of our sponsors—including Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, City of Hope, SWOG Cancer Research Network and The Hope Foundation for Cancer Research, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, Sarah Cannon Research Institute, UPMC Hillman Cancer Center, and many others.