Straight Shooter Radiation Oncologist Has a Passion for Cancer Treatment

Dr. Lanceford Chong wasn’t at work long at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan on the morning of 9/11 when he knew that this would most certainly not be just another day at the office.

Chong, then an associate attending radiation oncologist, said that by mid-morning, he and others had been instructed to cancel radiation treatments for those who would have to travel into Manhattan for them (they probably couldn’t get there anyway), but to attempt to keep as many as possible for those who lived close by.

The prevailing sentiment was to do everything possible to reserve facilities and physicians’ time for expected surviving victims of the terrorist attacks who would be brought to the center, located on the other end of the borough from Ground Zero.

Only none ever arrived.

“The tragedy of it was that so few people lived through it that they didn’t have to bring anyone here,” he recalled, adding that other things transpired that would make the day unforgettable. “The blood bank went into full gear outside my window on First Avenue. It was very touching … you had New Yorkers waiting in a long line outside Memorial to donate blood for someone they didn’t even know.

“It was absolutely … absolutely life-changing,” he continued, referring to the sum of what he saw and experienced that day and in the weeks that followed. “As the commercials started coming on asking for donations around the country, they would start out with ‘I’m so and so and I live in Denver, but I’m a New Yorker.’ Everyone became a New Yorker that day; I became a true New Yorker, even though I’m from California.”

Chong has plenty of other memories from 9/11, but perhaps what he remembers most from that tragedy was a documentary on New York firefighters he watched months later. Created by a French film crew, it was supposed to be a typical day-in-the-life piece about the FDNY. Instead, because of what happened that day, it became a tribute of sorts to those 348 firefighters who perished.

That’s a number that Chong, himself a long-time certified, Level II firefighter in Greenwich, Conn., can recite by heart.

“They showed a picture of every firefighter who perished,” he recalled. “I just sat at the end of my bed and cried and cried. It just hit my heart.”

The events of 9/11 and the days, weeks, and months that followed provided some of the most poignant pages in an important chapter in Chong’s career story. At the moment, he’s writing another one, as a head and neck cancer specialist in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Cooley Dickinson Hospital.

He arrived there several months ago, and, like others in his department, he’s eagerly awaiting the arrival of a new linear accelerator that will greatly enhance the unit’s capabilities.

Meanwhile, he’s already exploring the potential for creating what he called a “head and neck cancer institute,” which would take an academically oriented approach to the treatment of everything from brain tumors to base-of-the-tongue cancer, ailments that are not very common, but still a collective issue for the medical community, and one that Chong believes deserves some attention.

Down to a Science

By the time Chong had finished the first year of his residency in general surgery at the University of California Medical Center in San Diego, he knew that he wanted to do something else — specifically radiation oncology.

Actually, he knew, or probably should have known, that he would make this field his career roughly a decade earlier, when he was a senior in high looking for a project to satisfy one of the requirements in his Physics Class.

“The assignment was to give a talk on anything you wanted, so long as it related to physics,” he recalled, adding that, as fate would have it, his maternal grandmother was suffering with cancer at that time, and one of her treatments was radiation therapy. Chong would often accompany his mother as she took her for these treatments, and he became fascinated by the science — and the compassion of those administering care.

This interest, and a desire to learn more, prompted him to contact a well-known radiation oncologist in the region, Dr. Walter Gunn, and request an audience with him to discuss the use of radiology in cancer care and thus gain insight for his Physics project.

What he got was the opportunity of a lifetime.

“He said, ‘why don’t you spend a day with me?’” Chong recalled. “I met him at the medical center one day after school; he put a white lab coat on me that was way too big and said, ‘I’ll call you doctor so you don’t frighten the patients.’ He made the opportunity a very special one for me … he was a wonderful teacher, so this was in his blood.

“I was so energized and enthusiastic,” he continued. “When I gave my presentation, it was flawless and exciting for myself and class. I did very well with that.”

Flash forward to that first year of his surgical residency. Being at the University of California Medical School was a dream come true, he said, but the reality was that he wanted a change, and knew that his heart lay in the treatment of cancer patients.

After finishing his second residency, he would eventually go on to Memorial Sloan-Kettering for an eight-year stint that Chong would describe as his “Camelot time.” He was recruited there by Dr. Stephen Libel, chair of the department of Radiation Oncology, and one of his junior faculty members while he was at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco for his second residency.

“He taught me so much and was a true mentor,” said Chong, adding that he was a member of the head and neck cancer team at Sloan-Kettering, long regarded as sone of the top cancer-treatment facilities in the country. “It was a wonderful experience … it was a great time for me to be on the cutting edge of things in cancer care.”

Libel eventually left New York to return to California. The department changed after his departure, said Chong, adding that he soon began pursuing other opportunities. And found one at Cooley Dickinson, which was actively recruiting a head and neck cancer specialist.

“I was looking for an opportunity to expand a program in radiation oncology,” he explained, “and they were looking for a radiation oncologist who had an expertise in head and neck cancer. I said, ‘my goodness, this couldn’t be a better match.’”

One of the CDH’s more effective recruiting tactics was the promise of a new linear accelerator, Chong admits, adding that many hospitals and medical centers make such promises, but not all of them deliver. CDH is following through with technology that will complement existing facilities and enhance the department’s overall capabilities.

The new unit will likely come online in December or January, Chong told The Healthcare News, adding that final checks and double-checks are being conducted at this time.

“It’s truly state-of-the-art technology,” he explained. “It has wonderful capabilities that will allow us to provide treatment that hasn’t been available at Cooley Dickson or in this area.”

Elaborating, he said the new accelerator will enable specialists to provide what’s known as intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) delivered at the next level, which is volumetric-modulated arc therapy, or VMAT, and also the use of image-guided radiation therapy, or IGRT.

What all those acronyms add up to is far greater precision in the administering of radiation therapy.

“The new linear accelerator will give us the capability where we’ll run a limited CT scan of the patient in that anatomic region when they are in treatment position,” he explained. “That image will then be analyzed by the computer software and will compare that particular positioning of the patient to the position they were in during the CT simulation, the template. And it will actually say, ‘go so many millimeters in this direction or that direction.’

“If we are in agreement when we see this analysis by the computer, we would then allow it to go through by enabling it, and the table on which the patient is positioned would shift ever-so-slightly in the directions that are necessary. You can actually see the bone structures that may have a little bit of blurriness on the edges become essentially a single clear image.”

While excited about these new capabilities, and others, Chong is also intrigued by the prospects for creating a head and neck cancer institute in this region, a concept that is clearly in the formative stage.

Elaborating, he said that such cancers often necessitate the use of both radiation and chemotherapy treatments, as well as the services of psychologists, social workers, nutritionists, and other specialists. A head and neck cancers institute would permit a more team-oriented approach to treatment.

Such facilities exist for breast cancer and other types of cancer, but not for head and neck cancers, Chong continued, adding that he would like to be at the forefront of creating one.

Settling In

While pondering such possibilities, Chong is getting settled in Northampton and becoming acclimated with Western Mass., which represents quite a change from Manhattan and the teeming streets that he said became eerily quiet later in the day on 9/11.

“It was strange, like a science-fiction movie where humans no longer existed,” he said, while again returning to a day, and many experiences, that he’ll never forget.

That chapter is now in the past, and, as he said, he’s eager to write some new ones.

Dr. Lanceford Chong wasn’t at work long at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan on the morning of 9/11 when he knew that this would most certainly not be just another day at the office.

Chong, then an associate attending radiation oncologist, said that by mid-morning, he and others had been instructed to cancel radiation treatments for those who would have to travel into Manhattan for them (they probably couldn’t get there anyway), but to attempt to keep as many as possible for those who lived close by.

The prevailing sentiment was to do everything possible to reserve facilities and physicians’ time for expected surviving victims of the terrorist attacks who would be brought to the center, located on the other end of the borough from Ground Zero.

Only none ever arrived.

“The tragedy of it was that so few people lived through it that they didn’t have to bring anyone here,” he recalled, adding that other things transpired that would make the day unforgettable. “The blood bank went into full gear outside my window on First Avenue. It was very touching … you had New Yorkers waiting in a long line outside Memorial to donate blood for someone they didn’t even know.

“It was absolutely … absolutely life-changing,” he continued, referring to the sum of what he saw and experienced that day and in the weeks that followed. “As the commercials started coming on asking for donations around the country, they would start out with ‘I’m so and so and I live in Denver, but I’m a New Yorker.’ Everyone became a New Yorker that day; I became a true New Yorker, even though I’m from California.”

Chong has plenty of other memories from 9/11, but perhaps what he remembers most from that tragedy was a documentary on New York firefighters he watched months later. Created by a French film crew, it was supposed to be a typical day-in-the-life piece about the FDNY. Instead, because of what happened that day, it became a tribute of sorts to those 348 firefighters who perished.

That’s a number that Chong, himself a long-time certified, Level II firefighter in Greenwich, Conn., can recite by heart.

“They showed a picture of every firefighter who perished,” he recalled. “I just sat at the end of my bed and cried and cried. It just hit my heart.”

The events of 9/11 and the days, weeks, and months that followed provided some of the most poignant pages in an important chapter in Chong’s career story. At the moment, he’s writing another one, as a head and neck cancer specialist in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Cooley Dickinson Hospital.

He arrived there several months ago, and, like others in his department, he’s eagerly awaiting the arrival of a new linear accelerator that will greatly enhance the unit’s capabilities.

Meanwhile, he’s already exploring the potential for creating what he called a “head and neck cancer institute,” which would take an academically oriented approach to the treatment of everything from brain tumors to base-of-the-tongue cancer, ailments that are not very common, but still a collective issue for the medical community, and one that Chong believes deserves some attention.

Down to a Science

By the time Chong had finished the first year of his residency in general surgery at the University of California Medical Center in San Diego, he knew that he wanted to do something else — specifically radiation oncology.

Actually, he knew, or probably should have known, that he would make this field his career roughly a decade earlier, when he was a senior in high looking for a project to satisfy one of the requirements in his Physics Class.

“The assignment was to give a talk on anything you wanted, so long as it related to physics,” he recalled, adding that, as fate would have it, his maternal grandmother was suffering with cancer at that time, and one of her treatments was radiation therapy. Chong would often accompany his mother as she took her for these treatments, and he became fascinated by the science — and the compassion of those administering care.

This interest, and a desire to learn more, prompted him to contact a well-known radiation oncologist in the region, Dr. Walter Gunn, and request an audience with him to discuss the use of radiology in cancer care and thus gain insight for his Physics project.

What he got was the opportunity of a lifetime.

“He said, ‘why don’t you spend a day with me?’” Chong recalled. “I met him at the medical center one day after school; he put a white lab coat on me that was way too big and said, ‘I’ll call you doctor so you don’t frighten the patients.’ He made the opportunity a very special one for me … he was a wonderful teacher, so this was in his blood.

“I was so energized and enthusiastic,” he continued. “When I gave my presentation, it was flawless and exciting for myself and class. I did very well with that.”

Flash forward to that first year of his surgical residency. Being at the University of California Medical School was a dream come true, he said, but the reality was that he wanted a change, and knew that his heart lay in the treatment of cancer patients.

After finishing his second residency, he would eventually go on to Memorial Sloan-Kettering for an eight-year stint that Chong would describe as his “Camelot time.” He was recruited there by Dr. Stephen Libel, chair of the department of Radiation Oncology, and one of his junior faculty members while he was at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco for his second residency.

“He taught me so much and was a true mentor,” said Chong, adding that he was a member of the head and neck cancer team at Sloan-Kettering, long regarded as sone of the top cancer-treatment facilities in the country. “It was a wonderful experience … it was a great time for me to be on the cutting edge of things in cancer care.”

Libel eventually left New York to return to California. The department changed after his departure, said Chong, adding that he soon began pursuing other opportunities. And found one at Cooley Dickinson, which was actively recruiting a head and neck cancer specialist.

“I was looking for an opportunity to expand a program in radiation oncology,” he explained, “and they were looking for a radiation oncologist who had an expertise in head and neck cancer. I said, ‘my goodness, this couldn’t be a better match.’”

One of the CDH’s more effective recruiting tactics was the promise of a new linear accelerator, Chong admits, adding that many hospitals and medical centers make such promises, but not all of them deliver. CDH is following through with technology that will complement existing facilities and enhance the department’s overall capabilities.

The new unit will likely come online in December or January, Chong told The Healthcare News, adding that final checks and double-checks are being conducted at this time.

“It’s truly state-of-the-art technology,” he explained. “It has wonderful capabilities that will allow us to provide treatment that hasn’t been available at Cooley Dickson or in this area.”

Elaborating, he said the new accelerator will enable specialists to provide what’s known as intensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) delivered at the next level, which is volumetric-modulated arc therapy, or VMAT, and also the use of image-guided radiation therapy, or IGRT.

What all those acronyms add up to is far greater precision in the administering of radiation therapy.

“The new linear accelerator will give us the capability where we’ll run a limited CT scan of the patient in that anatomic region when they are in treatment position,” he explained. “That image will then be analyzed by the computer software and will compare that particular positioning of the patient to the position they were in during the CT simulation, the template. And it will actually say, ‘go so many millimeters in this direction or that direction.’

“If we are in agreement when we see this analysis by the computer, we would then allow it to go through by enabling it, and the table on which the patient is positioned would shift ever-so-slightly in the directions that are necessary. You can actually see the bone structures that may have a little bit of blurriness on the edges become essentially a single clear image.”

While excited about these new capabilities, and others, Chong is also intrigued by the prospects for creating a head and neck cancer institute in this region, a concept that is clearly in the formative stage.

Elaborating, he said that such cancers often necessitate the use of both radiation and chemotherapy treatments, as well as the services of psychologists, social workers, nutritionists, and other specialists. A head and neck cancers institute would permit a more team-oriented approach to treatment.

Such facilities exist for breast cancer and other types of cancer, but not for head and neck cancers, Chong continued, adding that he would like to be at the forefront of creating one.

Settling In

While pondering such possibilities, Chong is getting settled in Northampton and becoming acclimated with Western Mass., which represents quite a change from Manhattan and the teeming streets that he said became eerily quiet later in the day on 9/11.

“It was strange, like a science-fiction movie where humans no longer existed,” he said, while again returning to a day, and many experiences, that he’ll never forget.

That chapter is now in the past, and, as he said, he’s eager to write some new ones.