2023 Surgeon's Year End Message

December 2023

Cancer and Untruths Do Not Pause - Unless We Act!

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2023 was meant to be the year of social awakening - after medicine and science had stopped even though not eradicated the pandemic threat at 7 million COVID deaths worldwide and 1.2 million alone in the USA. The year in which we would stop hiding and as a society recover, return to interact, meet, go to the theaters, travel, think, research, foster progress and invest into the future.?

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However, it seems that we have forgotten how to properly interact with each other in tone and substance. Many prefer to stare into their phones (to endless TikToks?) rather than talking to surrounding people. Both on the global and on a national level, we fail to exercise discourse to understand other positions, discuss differences, and work out compromises. Many have become paralyzed viewers/followers rather than active participants in society, copy-pasting unchecked statements without due diligence. We are increasingly cornered in virtual dogmaspheres, AI-generated falsehoods, or in our individual news silos. Info sources have frequently been hijacked and dominated by a few reckless individuals and their armies of facilitators who – I guarantee you - do not care about you and others, about humanity, about saving rather than destroying lives but who have nothing in mind but their own person and position, their own religion or believes, their own selfish goals. Without decency and decorum, they spread lies to justify their actions and go after otherness rather than embracing diversity. A single or more, a few or more, a few hundreds or more, or even thousands of lost lives do not seem to matter – for the sake of achieving their goals!

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We, the medical professionals, are wired differently as we do care about individual lives and try to save or prolong as many as possible, one life at a time, one after another. Sometimes on long days, with very little sleep. Because we love our patients and our dedicated profession.

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And hence, I continue to wonder even more than last year what would happen if we did not care about you, point blank lied to you or acted in the same irresponsible way as these so-called world “leaders (?)”, dictators, narcissists, demagogues, negative influencers, all of whom run for nobody but themselves and never have the well-being of others and particularly of less fortunate others in mind. Why would anyone think that such power-seeking egoists and their movements would care about your individual struggles? It would simply be unimaginable that I as a surgeon intentionally would ignore scientific data, reviews and accumulated evidence and instead suggest that all those data were false and that those who dare to say so should be jailed or hanged. Or that I would tell our rectal cancer patients incorrectly to immediately undergo surgery when we all should know that in the era of precision medicine and precision surgery, a collaborative interdisciplinary approach with chemotherapy and radiation or in selected patients with immunotherapy may in fact achieve much better results and sometimes even allows to avoid surgery.

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Cancer does not respect order, does not respect well-being, does not respect life. Neither do untruths!

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Overcoming cancer often leads through rocky times, pains, and significant sacrifices. Distinguishing truth from untruths is not easy either but could not be more crucial. Both efforts require common sense, an inquisitive mind, perseverance and curiosity, the strength to acknowledge errors and defeat, and the creativity to work out solutions rather than chanting simple slogans against perceived stumbling blocks.

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We have the challenge and the privilege to see our cancer patients when they are particularly vulnerable, both physically and emotionally. Beyond the solid knowledge and skills, we cultivate the art of our guild and put in such stressful moments each individual patient into the center to define a specific and tailored care strategy with realistic optimism. In return and recognizing our team of professionals, our patients and families are willing to take on the risk of a major surgery - the most direct “intrusion” to their body’s integrity – with the mutual humble hope for success.

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Beyond the challenges in my job, I am very proud of my family as each and everyone contributes to bettering the world in one or the other way, through educating our youth, music, medicine, or through planning better cities.

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Medicine and surgery in particular, to the present day, remain a wonderful and fulfilling call to duty for the honor to help. It has been an enormous privilege for me to participate in your care! Thank you for the trust in me, in my team, and in our institution City of Hope, which as you may have heard has evolved from the mothership and main hub in Duarte, California, into a national institution with new hubs in Orange County, Chicago, Phoenix, and Atlanta.

My asks to you are to engage in face-to-face interactions rather than virtual ones, to look for what we share and not what divides us, to find solutions and compromise, and to please take a moment to reflect on how you can help others or how you can help us helping others.

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I wish you all the best for this Holiday Season and the New Year!

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Andreas M Kaiser, MD?FACS FASCRS?

Professor of Surgery?

Chief, Division of Colorectal Surgery

City of Hope National Medical Center (NCI-CCC)

1500 E. Duarte Road, MALP 2230

Duarte, CA 91010

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City of Hope Patient Success stories: ?

https://www.cityofhope.org/after-tough-diagnosis-colon-cancer-patient-gets-happy-surprise

https://www.cityofhope.org/where-others-stop-we-get-started-jeff-martins-story ?

https://www.cityofhope.org/turning-six-months-six-years-and-beyond ?

https://www.cityofhope.org/young-colon-cancer-patient-faces-devastating-diagnosis

City of Hope

Cancer Treatment Centers of America (acquired by City of Hope)

#colorectalsurgery #roboticsurgery #roboticCRS #cancer #colorectalcancer #