WASHINGTON (Jan. 10, 2016) — The George Washington University (GW) Cancer Center is pleased to announce Robert Siegel, M.D. ’77, professor of medicine at the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences, as the new associate center director for education, training, and network development.
In this new role, Siegel will oversee all cancer educational and training initiatives for students and trainees, clinical faculty, basic/population scientists, and health care workers in the catchment area of the GW Cancer Center. He will be charged with creating dynamic educational and training opportunities for the new generation of scientists, physicians, physician-scientists, and other health care providers.
“Knowledge is what drives clinical advances. What we teach in the classroom, the lab, and the clinic is what will poise tomorrow’s leaders to make a difference in cancer discovery, clinical care, and cancer prevention and control,” said Eduardo M. Sotomayor, M.D., director of the GW Cancer Center. “With Dr. Siegel’s decades of experience and track record of success in education and training, we could not be more pleased that he has accepted to join the senior leadership at the GW Cancer Center.”
Specifically, Siegel will focus on the following efforts:
- Combining didactic educational experiences with research,
- Supporting trainee research,
- Increasing exposure and opportunities for clinical fellows in research,
- Enhancing the education, training, and mentoring of junior faculty, and
- Growing community outreach and training to biomedical researchers and health care providers from minority and underserved populations.
Siegel has supervised the GW M.D. program’s second-year students in hematology since 1982. He has been the director of the GW Board Review Course since 1997, the largest program of its kind in the country. In the past several years, 50-60 percent of all candidates who take the certification exam in hematology or oncology have taken the GW course.
Siegel is board-certified in internal medicine, medical oncology, and hematology. He spearheaded efforts to create an oncology unit at GW, which was dedicated in 1984, and established the Cancer Conference and Tumor Boards that same year. He was instrumental in establishing a certified hospital tumor registry in 1985. Siegel’s research initially focused on immune thrombocytopenic purpura and sickle cell disease. More recently, his publications have included studies that have refined the therapy of breast cancer and head and neck cancer. He was among the first to document that young African American women are more likely to develop biologically more aggressive cancer compared to their Caucasian or Hispanic counterparts. Subsequent studies around the country have validated these results.
Siegel has been recognized for excellence in clinical care, and was given the Leonard Tow Humanism Award in 2005. In addition, he has been repeatedly recognized by Washingtonian magazine as one of the area’s best physicians.
