things . It was an area of surgery that I also had a lot of continuity with patients . I felt more engaged , rather than just a technician ; you weren ’ t just operating on patients then discharging them .”
After that year , he returned home to Kentucky and started as an Assistant Professor at the ULSOM in what was then the Division of Otolaryngology , in the Department of Surgery . Working mostly at the Brown Cancer Center , he found that there was room for improvement within the program and set out to find a solution .
“ You can ’ t solve everybody ’ s cancer with surgery , so I got very deeply interested in multidisciplinary cancer care , making sure that we involved medical oncology and radiation oncology , but even beyond that , social services , nursing , chaplaincy , speech pathology , nutrition and other folks that could help build a framework for success in treating the patient . I became captivated with this idea .”
To do so , he and Dr . Bill Spanos , then Chair of Radiation Oncology , and Dr . Don Miller , then Director of the Brown Cancer Center , started the first multidisciplinary head and neck cancer clinic in the state of Kentucky .
“ We had the bold notion of trying to be a one-stop shop for patients where they could come in and see us all in one visit ,” he said . “ We knew that even when you couldn ’ t cure a patient of their cancer , you could at least treat them humanely and provide them opportunities to get palliative care or hospice . You realize as a cancer physician that even in situations where you can ’ t deliver a cure , you
( Clockwise from top left ) Dr . Bumpous with a pediatric patient ; Dr . Bumpous with Dr . Elizabeth Self Burckhardt as an otolaryngology resident ; Dr . Bumpous ’ three daughters , Erin , Molly , and Claire ; Dr . Bumpous and wife Anne at a UofL football game ; Dr . Bumpous ’ dog .
can always help people . Team-based care now is the gold standard of the best way to treat cancer patients and their families .”
Adding to that , they developed a clinical trials program connected to the National Cancer Institute to help advance treatments of head and neck cancer . One of the things he finds most exciting about working in an academic setting is the opportunity for collaboration .
“ I love being able to work together with other departments . For example , I hired Liz Cash , who is a PhD psychologist who has allowed us to do a lot of research around depression and anxiety in cancer and how that relates to cancer outcomes . You can put teams together and really work at the cutting edge of trying to help solve some really tough problems in medicine .”
During his time in the Department of Surgery , he and his partners began to realize that physicians needed to be more business savvy , and he was afforded the opportunity to be a physician executive while Dr . Hiram Polk was Chair . It allowed him to not only get more insight into the business of medicine and relationships with hospitals and health systems , but it also taught him to be a good learner .
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