Dr. Kelly McMasters EPHRAIM MCDOWELL PHYSICIAN OF THE YEAR
As a surgical oncologist, Dr. Kelly McMasters aims toward the future – not only removing cancer from patients so they can move forward with their lives, but also overseeing the training of the next generation of surgeons, and initiating and guiding research to transform cancer treatment in decades to come. Yet as Chair of the Hiram C. Polk, Jr., MD, Department of Surgery at the University of Louisville, McMasters is also deeply respectful of the past – the long and distinguished history of the department that dates from its founding in 1837- and is sober about his personal responsibility to ensure its legacy.
Dr. McMasters took a multifaceted approach to medicine from the beginning of his career, graduating from medical school at Rutgers University with combined MD and PhD degrees. As a surgical resident at U of L, the New Jersey native enjoyed the challenge of caring for patients with difficult types of cancer, and appreciated the deep satisfaction of extending and saving their lives.
Following residency, Dr. McMasters left Louisville for a fellowship in surgical oncology at the University of Texas-M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, and he returned to U of L as an assistant professor, where former chair, Dr. Hiram C. Polk, Jr. and vice chair, Dr. J. David Richardson, also current president of the American College of Surgeons, were his mentors.“ I learned from them that to be a good surgeon you need to be a good doctor,” he says.“ If you operated on somebody, it was a sacred responsibility to take care of that patient for the rest of your life, a sacred trust.”
Dr. Richardson says that with his embrace of the surgical, research, academic and administrative realms, Dr. McMasters has emerged not only as a leader at U of L, but also among surgeons nationally. For example, he is secretary – and likely future president – of the Southern Surgical Association. Describing his colleague as“ fair and unselfish, quiet but confident,” Dr. Richardson’ s confidence in McMasters was such that some years ago he entrusted him with difficult cancer surgery on his own father.
Dr. McMasters says the road to success is paved with less brilliance than hard work, and finds his own role as mentor to future surgeons tremendously rewarding. He views his own path as“ a lifelong educational event” that began when his formal training ended. Dr. Polk says of McMasters,“ Somewhere he got a purpose in his life that’ s pretty uncommon.”
That purpose shifted profoundly for Dr. McMasters earlier this year when he and his wife, Beth, lost the youngest of their three sons to leukemia. Owen McMasters was just 16, a student at Trinity High School, described by his parents as brilliant with a sly wit and a love for video games, snowboarding, tennis and basketball, and famously a knack for beating surgical housestaff at poker. In the eulogy he delivered for his son, Dr. McMasters said,“ I’ ve learned that there is a huge difference between being a doctor and being a caregiver. I studied for many years to learn the former, yet knew nothing about the latter.”
Over the more than four years of Owen’ s treatment, Dr. McMasters says he and Beth, a Louisville attorney and former nurse, spent many nights sleeping in their son’ s pediatric hospital room, attending to his needs simply as parents. That’ s where the lessons of Drs. Polk and Richardson came into clearer focus, he said,“ Always putting patients first. Sometimes they just need one person to be a real doctor,” he reflects.“ One of the lessons I learned is to be that doctor.”
Now in addition to his other endeavors at U of L, Dr. McMasters has worked with U of L to establish the Owen’ s Wish Foundation of the James Graham Brown Cancer Center, with the goal to build a world-class program in cancer immunotherapy to honor Owen’ s memory. McMasters believes that immunotherapy will revolutionize cancer care and eliminate the need for most types of chemotherapy in our lifetime. One clinical trial is already in progress, and McMasters anticipates a clinical trial for children with leukemia within a year, drawing on inspiration from the past to reach for the future.
2016 DOCTORS’ BALL PHYSICIAN HONOREES
OCTOBER 2016 25