Prof. Gevorg Tamamyan, Editor-in-Chief of OncoDaily, and the President of SIOP Asia and POEM Group, shared on LinkedIn:
Recently, while cleaning my desk, I came across a few old handwritten papers.
They took me back to a moment from years ago. A close friend once called me and said he wanted to donate money to a family whose child had cancer. The family was struggling financially. He wanted to help, but anonymously, without any publicity. He asked me to transfer the money on his behalf to a family I thought needed support.
I did. And I asked the family to write a simple note confirming they had received the amount. When I sent that note to my friend, he replied, “I don’t need this. I trust you 100%.”
I refused.
“No,” I told him. “Please take it.”
We are close friends, but transparency matters. Always.
That moment reflects a principle that has guided me in every sphere of my life: radical transparency and accountability. Whether it’s transferring donations and keeping receipts (those papers I found on my desk), speaking with patients in clinical situations, or making appointments and leadership decisions, this principle never changes.
Today, trust is one of the most fragile currencies in the global arena. Many international institutions have become deeply politicized and are facing a crisis of transparency and accountability. As a result, trust in them is collapsing.
If we want to restore that trust, there is only one way forward: radical transparency and accountability. There is no alternative!