What's the story with Indiana?

[thesauce]

I saw they were advertising for a new chair. Where's the current chair going?

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Members don't see this ad.

 

[OTN]

It's going to be rant time here, so bear with me.

I'm very familiar with IU School of Medicine due to very strong family connections. I have NO IDEA why the IU Cancer Center has such a significant bias against radiation therapy, but there is no doubt in my mind they do. A good friend of mine from college was recently diagnosed with a Stage IVa thymoma (pleural invasion) and has started neoadjuvant chemo there. His medical oncologist told him he would likely not recommend radiation following resection and wasn't going to refer him to a radonc. Makes no sense to me and completely flies in the face of data. Fortunately, I was able to get him seen by someone else in town, so he will be receiving radiation, but it follows what is a classic pattern at IU of medoncs completely disregarding data w/r/t XRT.

I rotated through the department in medical school, and the whole thing seemed like an afterthought in the cancer center. I have no idea why the current chair is leaving, but I do know the search committee consists primarily of medical oncologists, with very little radonc input. They were one of the first places in the country to have the potential to develop proton therapy (decommissioned cyclotron in Bloomington, Indiana), but never did a thing to develop the program...and this was back in 1999/2000. Even now they see very few patients in the center.

Can anyone from the department confirm? Have I just been the victim of a few chance encounters, or is there a real problem there? The backstory I always heard was that Einhorn "doesn't believe" in radiation, as if his personal belief system should take precedence over data. Any takers?

 

[Gfunk6]

The backstory I always heard was that Einhorn "doesn't believe" in radiation, as if his personal belief system should take precedence over data.

Hard to argue with someone who has his own entry in Wikipedia . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Einhorn

 

[stems]

It's going to be rant time here, so bear with me.

I'm very familiar with IU School of Medicine due to very strong family connections. I have NO IDEA why the IU Cancer Center has such a significant bias against radiation therapy, but there is no doubt in my mind they do. A good friend of mine from college was recently diagnosed with a Stage IVa thymoma (pleural invasion) and has started neoadjuvant chemo there. His medical oncologist told him he would likely not recommend radiation following resection and wasn't going to refer him to a radonc. Makes no sense to me and completely flies in the face of data. Fortunately, I was able to get him seen by someone else in town, so he will be receiving radiation, but it follows what is a classic pattern at IU of medoncs completely disregarding data w/r/t XRT.

I rotated through the department in medical school, and the whole thing seemed like an afterthought in the cancer center. I have no idea why the current chair is leaving, but I do know the search committee consists primarily of medical oncologists, with very little radonc input. They were one of the first places in the country to have the potential to develop proton therapy (decommissioned cyclotron in Bloomington, Indiana), but never did a thing to develop the program...and this was back in 1999/2000. Even now they see very few patients in the center.

Can anyone from the department confirm? Have I just been the victim of a few chance encounters, or is there a real problem there? The backstory I always heard was that Einhorn "doesn't believe" in radiation, as if his personal belief system should take precedence over data. Any takers?

 

[thesauce]

Speaks volumes on how crappy their cancer center is that they have to search for their new chair on the Astro career center website. That's where new grads find jobs.

I'm going to apply 🙂

 

[Gfunk6]

Well, many institutions are required by law to publically advertise their chair positions. I have seen similar postings on the ASTRO Career Center, Red Journal, etc.