OncoDaily Walk and Talk with Enrique Soto, Hosted by Tatev Margaryan

Welcome back to Walk & Talk on OncoDaily!

Our guest for today is Dr. Enrique Soto. 

Dr. Enrique Soto is a geriatric oncologist and researcher in the Department of Geriatrics at the Instituto Nacional de Ciencias Médicas y Nutrición Salvador Zubirán in Mexico City. On the Board, he serves as a liaison to the ASCO Evidence-Base Medicine Commitee, and is a member of the Society’s Finance Committee. He also currently serves on several ASCO committees, including the Journal of Global Oncology Editorial Board, Social Media Working Group, Diversity and Inclusivity Task Force, Technology Research Group, and Publishing Research Group. He has previously served on the AM Education Committee and the Grants Selection Committee. He received a 2019 Conquer Cancer Career Development Award.

Previously, Dr. Soto has served on several other ASCO research groups and advisory panels, contributed to the ASCO Connection and ASCO Daily News, and was selected for a Journal of Global Oncology Editorial Fellowship.

Watch the interview hosted by Tatev Margaryan learn more about Dr. Enrique Soto.

The transcript of OncoDaily Walk and Talk with Tatev Margaryan and Enrique Soto

Tatev Margaryan: Hello everyone and welcome back to Walk and Talk Daily. Today our guest is Doctor Enrique Soto from Mexico. Can you please introduce yourself?

Enrique Soto: Yes of course. Hi everyone. My name is Enrique Soto. I am a geriatric oncologist and I work at the National Institute of Medical Science in Mexico City, where I lead the cancer care in the older adult clinic.

Tatev Margaryan: Thank you so much. And thank you for joining us today for our walk and talk.

Enrique Soto: Our pleasure.

Tatev Margaryan: We’re going to take a stroll, and I’m going to ask you a couple of silly or interesting questions. Nothing professional. Okay?

Enrique Soto: Perfect.

Tatev Margaryan: Okay then let’s get going.

Enrique Soto: Yeah, yeah.

Tatev Margaryan: So the first question is, if you could master any form of art, painting or sculpture or dancing, anything art related, which would you choose and why would you choose that exact art?

Enrique Soto: Music, of course. I think I would love to be able to play music. I was never very talented at music as a kid. I had piano lessons, but I was never that good. And now I regret not learning more.

I would love to have a band or to play any instrument. But I’m. I think that as an adult, it’s harder to learn, so I don’t think I would ever be able to do that. But if I were to go back, that’s what I would do. And now I think, something that I would like to do, which is an art also is, write but not, what we write, which is like very technical literature. Yeah. Not research because that’s, that’s technical.

No, but to actually write something like a novel, fiction or it doesn’t have to be fiction, it can be nonfiction, but more artistic than what we do, which is not artistic writing. Actually, I try to drain the art out of the papers, because that way they read it more easily. But yeah, that’s what I think I would like to do.

Tatev Margaryan: Okay. So the second one is, if you could swap lives with any person, dead or alive for a single day, who would you?

Enrique Soto: One day, like for a day?

Tatev Margaryan: For a single day. For 24 hours? Okay. Lives with someone. Would it be a person dead or alive?

Enrique Soto: But it has to be a specific person or?

Tatev Margaryan: I mean, who would you swap places with?

Enrique Soto: Oh, I think for a day I would probably swap places with someone in sports, like a tennis player or. Yeah, I think a tennis player.

Tatev Margaryan: Do you have anyone?

Enrique Soto: I’m a fan, but it wouldn’t matter. I wouldn’t mind swapping with anybody else. Like playing a Grand Slam final or any other sport. Like, I like baseball a lot, which is a very Latin American and US sport.

Yeah. You don’t play it here, but yeah, like playing a game in the World Series of Baseball or the final of the World Cup or something like that. Yeah, yeah, the tour de France. I love cycling, so yeah, I’m a cyclist. So yeah, something like that.

Tatev Margaryan: Yeah, something sport.

Enrique Soto: Yeah, yeah, and a very like in the way of a very special sporting event I think for a day I would choose that.

Tatev Margaryan: Okay. Good. Good answer. Okay If you had the chance to meet your future self, someone for example, in 20 years or 30 years.

Enrique Soto: Myself in 30 years. Okay.

Tatev Margaryan: So what would be the first question you would ask them?

Enrique Soto: Oh.

Tatev Margaryan: Starting thinking.

Enrique Soto: Yeah, because I, I don’t know if I would like to meet my future self, I wouldn’t ask, I wouldn’t ask them anything about the past because that would drain all the fun out of it. No, like not knowing what’s going to happen. It’s one of the nicest things in life.

Tatev Margaryan: So you just watch from the side.

Enrique Soto: Yeah. No, I probably chit chat like this, ask for any questions, but I don’t think I would ask anything very specific. Like, what choices should I do.

Tatev Margaryan: Or shouldn’t now?

Enrique Soto: Yeah. No. Like or like in back to the future. Now I could ask about something to bet on. Yeah, yeah, but no, no, no, I don’t think I would do that. I would just chit chat and, Yeah.

Tatev Margaryan: I mean, that’s interesting in a way, but

Enrique Soto: but it would be good because I know that I’d be alive in 20 years, which is…

Tatev Margaryan: Well, yes. Yes, I mean, hopefully. Right. Okay. Can you share a movie or a book that has significantly impacted your life and explain why that exact piece are you choosing?

Enrique Soto: So I don’t feel like, of course, there are movies that impact your life and that impact that moment in your life. I don’t think there is any piece of literature of, or of art that has actually shaped my life.

But I do think that, for example, rather than a specific thing, I think that growing up, reading a lot of fiction, which is something I don’t do that now anymore. I read very little because of work. Yeah, it’s sad, but I think it happens to a lot of us. but I think that all of that, just being able to read a lot of fiction, read about this, create an imagination.

It actually has helped me a lot in, being more creative when I try to figure out things for my everyday life or my work, etc., but I wouldn’t pinpoint a specific thing. I mean, there are movies I love. I just saw one in the plane, actually, which I completely love. Have past lives. Yeah. Wow, what a movie. Yeah. my favorite movie of the year so far. Yeah.

Tatev Margaryan: Okay, good. I have to check that out.

Enrique Soto: Yeah, check it out.

Tatev Margaryan: Very good. Okay, next question is, if you could travel to any time in general in human history, what era would that be and what would you do there?

Enrique Soto: Can I come back?

Tatev Margaryan: Yeah.

Enrique Soto: So it’s not like I’m traveling and staying there because I wouldn’t stay in any time in the past. I think we’re living the best. We’re living the best time in human history now. No, I think, for me, what I would like to see, for example, and I always think about it when I’m driving to work every day in Mexico City is to see what that valley looked like. 1500 years ago.

And just to stroll around if now it’s beautiful. I don’t know if you’ve seen Mexico City. It’s like surrounded by volcanoes and it’s beautiful but full of people and houses. So I think I would just go back to no specific time but 1500-2000 years ago and just take a walk around and see what it looked like, and then come back so that I can sleep in a bed and all of that have electricity.

Tatev Margaryan: Use the privilege.

Enrique Soto: Yeah, yeah, the privilege of modernity, which are amazing.

Tatev Margaryan: Yeah, I can understand. Okay. If you could change your job for time period, not forever. Something you would have wanted to do, something that you would have been interested or have dreamed as a child to do, what would you choose?

Enrique Soto: So as a child, my dream was to be an archaeologist. Okay? That was my dream as a child. And, but, you know, that’s one of the professions that people, particularly adults, kill when you are a child because it’s like there’s no money in that, etc. I still would like to be an archaeologist.

But again, coming back to your question about a day in the life, if I were able to be like a professional tennis player or a Formula One driver or something like that, I would 100%. Yeah, of course you I mean, you know. Well. But stop, I can’t that I can’t do it. But if I could.

Tatev Margaryan: Okay. Got you.

And the last question I think for today, if you went would have written. If you would have liked to write a book about yourself, So what would you title that book?

Tatev:  Well, that’s a book about yourself, your life.

Enrique Soto: A super difficult question. I have never thought about it. There is a Swedish book, The Incredible Adventures of Title. Something like that. The Incredible Adventures of or something like that.

Tatev Margaryan: I would read that, I would read that and maybe we should stay tuned. Someday you will write and publish.

Enrique Soto: Probably. I need better adventures, but. Well, we’re working on that.

Tatev Margaryan: I mean, there’s so much still ahead of us.

Enrique Soto: Yeah, I hope so.

Tatev Margaryan: Thank you so much for being a guest for OncoDaily’s Walk and Talk today. We had Doctor Enrique Soto for today’s guest. Stay tuned for future walks and talks.

Enrique Soto: To you.

Tatev Margaryan: Bye.

Previous episodes of OncoDaily Walk and Talk with Tatev Margaryan

Episode 1: Yelena Janjigian

Episode 2: John Gore

Episode 3: Philip Philip, Celine Philip

Episode 4: Maite Gorostegui