Amazing Results! President Lynn M. Schuchter on ASCO 2024

This year, OncoDaily was at ASCO 2024 for the first time covering the meeting on-site. We had the honor of interviewing Prof. Lynn M. Schuchter, ASCO President for 2023-2024.

Lynn M. Schuchter is the President of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). Dr. Schuchter is the Chief of the Division of Hematology-Oncology at the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania, Director of the Tara Miller Melanoma Center and Professor of Hematology-Oncology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Schuchter served on the ASCO Board of Directors from 2009 to 2012, as well as several ASCO committees, including terms as Chair of the Annual Meeting Scientific Program Committee, Cancer Research Committee, and Cancer Communications Committee. In 2019, she was awarded ASCO’s Women Who Conquer Cancer Mentorship Award.

The host is Elen Baloyan, MD, the managing editor of OncoDaily.

Elen Balyan: Hello everyone, my name is Elen. I am the Managing Editor of OncoDaily and it is my great pleasure to welcome here today the President of ASCO, Professor Lynn Schuchter.
Welcome Dr. Schuchter. Thank you for being here today. It is our great pleasure to have you here and we know you have a pretty busy schedule so we won’t keep you for a while.

Lynn Schuchter: Thank you. Good to be with you. Good to be with you.

Elen Balyan: Thank you. Let me tell you this is my first meeting at ASCO and I am shocked and amazed beyond words and I think the natural question that rises among the first-timers like me is how is ASCO this big and what is your special secret to gather people from around the world together?

Lynn Schuchter: Well ASCO is an amazing meeting and this year I think there’s more than 40,000 registered and we had a record number of abstracts submitted 7,000 but ASCO is the meeting where the most innovative cutting-edge results are presented and people are so eager to hear the results of new clinical trials.

Also there’s just a huge amount of effort put into the education program so we’re everyone’s coming here for the new science the results of the clinical trials but half the meeting is also education so what does every oncologist need to know about the care of patients with a variety of cancers so it blends education science

The latest you know information that we can take back to our patients in clinic next week and being here together in person everyone’s able to network be together I mean you can feel the excitement here and with great intention you know we have areas for people to meet they can be outside they can gather that’s a really important part of this sharing ideas

I just heard this new information how am I going to incorporate that into my practice what do you think about it so and and you know we train from all over the world people have an opportunity to see their old friends so a lot of needs get met at this annual meeting.

Elen Baloyan: Yes I think you pretty much summarized everything in 24 hours even is not enough to get engaged with anything right so are there some highlights or major announcements at this meeting at this year’s meeting for you that are very special?

Lynn Schuchter: Yes so you know you’ve heard my presidential theme the art and science of cancer care from comfort to cure and so we planned this year to especially integrate issues around communication with patients symptom management into every session

So I think people are enjoying that as they’re learning about the latest advances in lung cancer or even you know patients with brain tumors in those same sessions we’re able to learn well how do I need to best communicate with my patients how do I explain prognosis how do I share bad news

And so we have I think really successfully integrated the human side of the care of the patient and that is, I mean our oncologists are facing this every day

We have nurses here, we have pharmacists here, we have, you know oncologists that are radiation oncologists, surgeons, pediatric oncologists, we have patient advocates here

So we are all learning together and the sessions I think really celebrate, the you know, the need for us to collaborate and you mentioned the global community is here and we’re very excited about that because, you know, as I mentioned in my opening address we are going to face, we are facing a crisis with the number of cancers around the world and that will take a global effort to impact this

So having us all together learning this information sharing best practices, so my huge huge smile on my face right now is because this idea of this integration of science and humanity, you feel it in the sessions there is a joy at this meeting that I’m just loving it

As I’m walking around and I mean amazing results our plenary session had spectacular results, you know, across many different disease types so yeah been a fantastic 24 hours

Elen Baloyan: You mentioned the global disparities and the crisis that we have in oncology so how do you think this year’s meeting is going to impact the global community in oncology and what to expect next year in terms of progress and in terms of still pending progress

Lynn Schuchter: well I think it as I said it requires this collective effort you know we have regulatory agencies here I actually just saw Rick Pastor who’s the director of the oncology FDA we have the National Cancer Institute here we have the European Cancer Organization here we have representatives from ESMO we have presidents of all the major oncology societies around the world and we are all working together to see how can we tackle this but it’s this takes investment from our governments this takes us identifying the priorities this takes us advocating certain policies

So I don’t think there is a fast solution but I think, I do think it’s urgent that we are aligning the policies and the budgets to help address this global burden and as you said we want to make sure that everybody has access to care and there’s huge disparities in access to care at the White House

And the National Cancer Plan emphasizes the cancer moonshot and the European Union emphasizing this ground shot and so together you know that is getting cancer care to all patients thinking about the new innovations with sort of the moonshot and big ideas but it is we need the public you know to help us and we need the resources to tackle the problem.

Elen Baloyan: All of that sounds very very complicated and challenging and just to see this much happening at the annual event I’m guessing that being the ASCO president full time is even more challenging so how do you manage and balance being the ASCO president with your other professional activities and personal life?

Lynn Schuchter: Great question well you know you probably have figured out that ASCO has an amazing staff and so I get to work with the most talented staff across the organization and ASCO is blessed to have so many volunteers so again clinicians, nurses, patient advocates from around the world sit on our various committees to do the work of this meeting so it’s been a really special year and I’ve been able to travel around the world and meet so many people.

I do have a busy practice at the University of Pennsylvania. I direct the Tara Miller Melanoma Center there and so it is hard to balance and I have twin boys who are 24 and they were here at the meeting which they’ve never been to ASCO before so it’s been there are challenges to figure out how to balance all this but I’ve loved it and have had you know tremendous support in my home life and at my home institution and at ASCO to get this all done.

Elen Baloyan: Do your sons like the meeting? Are they planning to come back?

Lynn Schuchter: I don’t know they did really enjoy it and they because they got the badges they walked through and they were they were stunned as you just said by the size of it just by the complexity of it they had no idea they know I go to ASCO every year they didn’t really know what that meant and so it’s good for them to have an appreciation for what is happening when I’m away.

Elen Baloyan: Let me say you are the ASCO president which for oncology community I think I won’t be mistaken to say that is like being the president of the world. I would not agree but what would your advice be to young aspiring leaders or people who are trying to become leaders especially for women throughout their career to work for and to aim for to become the president of the world?

Lynn Schuchter: Well my advice would be I mean what one is that well I think that women are incredible leaders and we do we want to see more women in leadership roles and ASCO has done a phenomenal job there. 61 percent of the ASCO board right now are women and ASCO has a number of leadership development programs but one thing I want to mention is about intention. So you asked me about you know this meeting but the planning of how I wanted this to go and the integration of my message began two years ago.

It began with the selection of who the education chair was Dr. Tom LeBlanc. He is a leukemia physician but he’s also a palliative care physician so I and I in my main reason for running to become ASCO president was the platform really that I’ve shared with you and the presidential theme and so whatever leadership role whatever you know that person is trying to move something forward just if there is so much intention and planning around that and there are many steps to that.

So I think it’s an important part of leadership is understanding what you need to do to then achieve your vision. There is much intention about that. It’s a very important skill.

Elen Baloyan: We need to have a plan.

Lynn Schuchter: Yes yes yes yes yes yes.

Elen Baloyan: During the interview could you name some of the highlights and milestones of your career that you feel are so important to lead you here today?

Lynn Schuchter: Yes well one I’ve had great mentors myself and you know we’re using this other term called sponsors. Sponsors are somebody who more publicly advocates for you and helps you you know have new opportunities. So Dr. John Glipp who’s my mentor at the University of Pennsylvania.

He’s a past ASCO president. He really helped me I think ultimately to get more involved with ASCO but really my work has been driven by you know patient care and melanoma and I’ve had a you know interest in this disease for more than 35 years and that we’ve seen this progress in the treatment of melanoma during my career has been incredible.

So 10 years ago we didn’t have these effective treatments.
So I just can’t believe the progress in science to new drugs to really we are curing some patients with stage 4 melanoma. That has been incredible.

Elen Baloyan: And thank you for that. Thank you for being here today and accepting our invitation. It was a pleasure.
I hope to see you next year.

Lynn Schuchter: Very good. Very nice to meet you. Enjoy.

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