I have been the Gundersen Health System Cancer Center Director for 10 years. In that period, I have seen many changes driving cancer care within our organization such as precision medicine, staffing shortages, changing treatment paradigms and re-imbursement models just to name a few. In this process of change, cancer care has become a much more complex disease with multiple providers routinely involved in the care of patients and with that it is a significantly more expensive disease to treat. Along with the constant change in cancer care, I too have evolved both as a physician as well as a community cancer center leader.
As cancer center director I have been involved in multiple aspects of the business of cancer care, human resources, financing, risk management, marketing, and information technology. This new set of challenges extended far beyond my medical school training and brought me to pursue an MBA which I completed in May of 2019. I have also realized that as much as I could control and transform within our organization, factors external to our organization are having an outsized influence on cancer care, namely reimbursement models and health care policy decisions. These two factors have led me to be engaged in our state society, the Wisconsin Association of Hematology and Oncology (WAHO) as well our state CDC sponsored program the Wisconsin Cancer Collaborative (WCC) where I sit on the steering committee and chair the policy committee. I have also been involved with the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). At ASCO I volunteered time with several committees including the Government Relations Committee (GRC) for 3 years as well as leading the State Affiliate Council (SAC) for an additional 3 years. It is with this backdrop that I would like to serve on the Board of Trustees for the Association of Community Cancer Centers (ACCC). I believe that the experience I bring and more importantly the added perspective I could gain, would help me best advocate for the mission of ACCC as well as the patients I treat, and the cancer center I lead. I humbly look forward to the opportunity to serve on the Board of Trustees for the ACCC.
