Douglas Flora, Executive Medical Director of Yung Family Cancer Center at St. Elizabeth Healthcare, President-Elect of the Association of Cancer Care Centers, and Editor in Chief of AI in Precision Oncology, shared a post on LinkedIn:
“There are two types of people in this world – candle lighters and candle blowers.”
Dr. Lucio Gordan is a candle lighter.
We met on a panel at AVBCC a couple of years back and became fast friends.
We’ve been pushing similar narratives together ever since: driving smarter cancer care, closing the gap between what oncology knows how to do and what patients actually receive. He moves through this conversation the way the best clinicians move through difficult rooms, looking for what’s possible, naming what isn’t, refusing to settle into the comfortable cynicism the system often rewards.
Last night I spoke at the Florida Cancer Specialists and Research Institute’s annual meeting, followed by a book signing and dinner with the executive team. We talked about the real gaps in community oncology. The places patients fall through. What it would take to close them. Nobody at that table was looking for reasons it couldn’t be done. Everyone was working on the next move.
That’s rarer than it should be.
I’ve sat in too many rooms where smart people default to blowing out the candle. They greet a new idea by composing the reason it won’t work. They mistake skepticism for rigor. They mistake caution for wisdom. The room thins, the energy leaves, and you walk away tired without quite knowing why.
The FCS team is the opposite of that room. I left wondering how many of those busy doctors might log on to Claude or ChatGPT today and finally see what all the fuss is about. Hopeful is the right word.
Grateful to Lucio, Ryan Ciarrocchi, David Wenk, Michelle Robey, and Jen Bradley for pulling it all together. It is no mystery why this group continues to set the standard for what strong oncology close to home can look like.
Next up – more candle lighters, as we head across town for COA tomorrow.
It’s gratifying to watch this conversation grow. One candle lights another, and the room keeps getting brighter.”
Other articles featuring Douglas Flora on OncoDaily.
