Today Dr. Roswell Park is remembered mostly as the founder of the world’s first cancer research institute, but his contributions to medicine extend much further. He was a pioneer in neurosurgery and became the first American surgeon to successfully treat spina bifida, a serious birth defect.
Listen as Sue Banchich, Senior Writer and Editor, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, discusses this great pioneer in the field of medicine.
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Who was Dr. Roswell Park?
Featured Speaker:
Sue Banchich
Sue Banchich is the Senior Writer and Editor, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center. Transcription:
Who was Dr. Roswell Park?
Bill Klaproth (Host): Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center has a long, proud tradition, but who was Dr. Roswell Park? Here to tell us more is Sue Banchich. Sue, thank you so much for being on with us. Let’s start at the very beginning. Tell us, who was Dr. Roswell Park?
Dr. Sue Banchich (Guest): Well, he was a remarkable man, and today he’s known principally as the person who founded what became Roswell Park Cancer Institute. Eventually, it was named after him. It was the first institute in the world to focus exclusively on cancer research. There were cancer hospitals, but this was the first place to focus exclusively on the research. Originally it was just a research institution, the hospital did not open until some time later, and that was when we began the mission that we have today, not only as patient care but also combining the research and also educating new generations of cancer physicians and researchers.
Bill: And why was research so important to him?
Sue: Well, he began his career at a really important time in the medical community and especially in the community that would later become Oncology specific. He was born in 1852, and by the time he became a practicing physician, several things were taking place in the world of medicine. One is that Anesthesia had become reliable so that you could do an extended surgery. Surgery had been done for literally thousands of years without anesthesia but extended surgery, which is what you need with cancer surgery -- to do something completely and to make sure all cancer has been removed -- really required that the patient be anesthetized. The second thing is the understanding that bacteria create an infection -- they cause infection, and he was one of the first physicians to promote the antiseptic method of surgery. With those things in mind, everything was set in place to make it possible to do research and to do some perfections in the surgical methods for cancer.
Also at that time, because people understood how infection contributed to disease, some of the very dreaded diseases, the biggest killers, especially in the United States, were suddenly becoming less fearful. We were wiping out things like Typhoid and as those fell off the list of the most severe killers, the things that killed people the most, Dr. Park realized that cancer was rising to the top, that this would become more of a killer, not only in the United States, but around the world. He saw that we needed to apply research to combat that disease, the same way research had helped to counteract Typhoid and some of those other diseases.
Bill: That’s very interesting talking about anesthesia, extended surgery and the bacteria in infection that goes along with that. Certainly, that research led to many contributions to medicine and especially cancer. Can you talk a little bit about spina bifida in neurosurgery? I know Dr. Park was instrumental in those as well.
Sue: He was really a pioneer. He also did General Surgery of all kinds, and he was the first surgeon in the United States to successfully perform surgery for spina bifida, so that’s one of the many things that he did in a pioneering aspect. Mostly I think we tend to think of him -- especially at Roswell Park Cancer Institute – as someone who was innovative in applying science to the regulation of cancer, not only in preventing It, but also in curing it.
Bill: And Sue, can you talk to us more about some of his breakthroughs, such as operating in a sterile environment?
Sue: Sure. He entered the medical profession at a time when most physicians did not recognize the role that bacteria played in causing infections. I can’t stress enough how bizarre [LAUGHS] it is at this point in history to look back – even during the Civil War, surgeons sometimes even moistened sutures with their own saliva and rolled the threads between their dirty fingers before they closed a wound. Medical instruments were often rinsed off in water that had been contaminated by previous operations. When Dr. Park was an Intern and House Physician at Chicago’s Cook County Hospital in 1876, he saw how many patients were dying from blood poisoning, which is bacterial infections of the bloodstream, and he was one of the first physicians to champion the cause of having an antiseptic area for surgery. People were not always eager just to adopt that new practice, but he was one of them who did, and he insisted that people wear masks and gloves and that carbolic acid be used to sterilize the surgical site during surgery.
Bill: That’s very interesting. We just take these things for granted nowadays. We see on TV shows the surgeons scrubbing up and putting off the masks on and antiseptics. Well, somebody had to be the first go to, “Wait a minute, maybe our dirty hands are causing infection. Maybe we need to clean our hands and put masks on to not promote bacteria.” It’s very interesting. We never think about those things, but now that you talk about it, you go, “Geez, that’s right.” Somebody at one point had to say, ”Hey, wait a minute, maybe our dirty hands are causing further infection and making the patients sick,” so we have Dr. Park to thank for that. I know he was also instrumental in patient privacy as well. Can you tell us about that?
Sue: Dr. Park was the Medical Director of the 1901 Panamerican Exposition in Buffalo, which famously was the event at which President McKinley was assassinated. Part of the design of the fair was that people were brought from other parts of the world to create little villages so that people who lived in Buffalo shot had never been outside of the state, and probably would never travel outside the country, could learn a little bit about what people’s lives were like in other parts of the world. At one point, during the fair, a man who worked there who came from another country was stricken ill and was taken to the Emergency Hospital, which had been constructed on the fairgrounds. It was designed by Dr. Park for emergency cases. The gentleman was taken there for treatment, and Dr. Park did that so that the man could be with his family and wouldn’t be far away from people who could translate for him. He made it a point because there were always reporters around trying to get sensational stories – what’s going on? Did somebody get shot? What’s happening with the patients there? – and he made it very clear to the people who worked at the fair that patients were putting their lives, their health, and their privacy in the hands of the people at the hospital and he insisted that patients should be treated with every courtesy and with becoming privacy. Those were his words. He said, “No name should be given out without the consent of the patient,” records were private and in his own words, “Our hospital was a retreat and an asylum to which those who were sick and injured could come when they desired for refuge from the public, and that from this rule there should be no departure.” He absolutely believed that what happened to patients within those walls should be private.
Bill: That is amazing. What a great story that is. Again, you never think about these things, but then when you hear about the person that was instrumental in bringing about these changes, it really puts it in perspective about the accomplishments of Dr. Park. It truly is amazing. I know you touched on this a little bit at the beginning, but can you talk about that a little bit, of the legacy of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute and how it became, really the first cancer research institute in the world?
Sue: Dr. Park, as I said, was recognizing that some diseases were being wiped off of the face of the earth because science had been brought there to try to solve what caused them and how they could be prevented or cured. As they fell off the list of the most dreaded diseases, the ones that were the greatest killers, he saw that cancer was rising to the top. He predicted accurately that that would continue to happen over the next several years, so where do you get support to try to bring together the scientists, the medicine, and the equipment that’s needed to do that? He went to the legislature and the Governor of the State of New York and proposed that this was a public health issue and so public monies should be applied to this. He asked the Governor and the Legislature for $10,000 to establish a laboratory in Buffalo that would be used exclusively for cancer research. Both houses of the legislature approved the $10,000 fund. The Governor vetoed it, and Dr. Park came back to Buffalo, but he was not discouraged or dissuaded because he knew that the following year would be an election year, so he went back and promoted his case once again, and this time the Governor saw the light and everyone approved the $10,000 to establish the laboratory, which was housed at the University of Buffalo.
Bill: Again, another incredible story and persistence pay off, and we’re glad that Dr. Park was persistent in his trying to get research funds from the state. Another great story and thank you, for sharing that with us. And Sue, can you tell us, how does his legacy live on today?
Sue: I think the principles he set forth for the laboratory, which eventually also included a hospital, are very much in place today. He saw that all disciplines in Oncology work together. You can’t have just the surgeon. You have to have also the Epidemiologist to figure out what the source of the disease is and you have to have all the people – as we would say today, now we have Radiation Oncology, we have Medical Oncology, and we have Surgical Oncology, and all the people in those fields have to talk together, and we do that. We have multidisciplinary conferences where our physicians get together and discuss the case from various aspects. Somebody might say, “Well, I’m in Radiation Medicine. I might be able to shrink that tumor with radiation before you start chemotherapy and that might be more effective.” They discuss these cases together at these multidisciplinary conferences. That’s very much what Dr. Park had in mind, to bring together everybody from various aspects of medicine to look at the case and what would work best for each patient.
Bill: Sue, that coordination of care, vitally important, another breakthrough that Dr. Park has taught us. Well, I so enjoy talking to you, and I know there’s much more to this story so hopefully, we can have you back again to talk more about Dr. Roswell Park and his amazing accomplishments. Sue, thank you again for your time today, and for more information visit RoswellPark.org, that’s RoswellPark.org. You’re listening to Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center Cancer Talk. I’m Bill Klaproth, thanks for listening.
Who was Dr. Roswell Park?
Bill Klaproth (Host): Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center has a long, proud tradition, but who was Dr. Roswell Park? Here to tell us more is Sue Banchich. Sue, thank you so much for being on with us. Let’s start at the very beginning. Tell us, who was Dr. Roswell Park?
Dr. Sue Banchich (Guest): Well, he was a remarkable man, and today he’s known principally as the person who founded what became Roswell Park Cancer Institute. Eventually, it was named after him. It was the first institute in the world to focus exclusively on cancer research. There were cancer hospitals, but this was the first place to focus exclusively on the research. Originally it was just a research institution, the hospital did not open until some time later, and that was when we began the mission that we have today, not only as patient care but also combining the research and also educating new generations of cancer physicians and researchers.
Bill: And why was research so important to him?
Sue: Well, he began his career at a really important time in the medical community and especially in the community that would later become Oncology specific. He was born in 1852, and by the time he became a practicing physician, several things were taking place in the world of medicine. One is that Anesthesia had become reliable so that you could do an extended surgery. Surgery had been done for literally thousands of years without anesthesia but extended surgery, which is what you need with cancer surgery -- to do something completely and to make sure all cancer has been removed -- really required that the patient be anesthetized. The second thing is the understanding that bacteria create an infection -- they cause infection, and he was one of the first physicians to promote the antiseptic method of surgery. With those things in mind, everything was set in place to make it possible to do research and to do some perfections in the surgical methods for cancer.
Also at that time, because people understood how infection contributed to disease, some of the very dreaded diseases, the biggest killers, especially in the United States, were suddenly becoming less fearful. We were wiping out things like Typhoid and as those fell off the list of the most severe killers, the things that killed people the most, Dr. Park realized that cancer was rising to the top, that this would become more of a killer, not only in the United States, but around the world. He saw that we needed to apply research to combat that disease, the same way research had helped to counteract Typhoid and some of those other diseases.
Bill: That’s very interesting talking about anesthesia, extended surgery and the bacteria in infection that goes along with that. Certainly, that research led to many contributions to medicine and especially cancer. Can you talk a little bit about spina bifida in neurosurgery? I know Dr. Park was instrumental in those as well.
Sue: He was really a pioneer. He also did General Surgery of all kinds, and he was the first surgeon in the United States to successfully perform surgery for spina bifida, so that’s one of the many things that he did in a pioneering aspect. Mostly I think we tend to think of him -- especially at Roswell Park Cancer Institute – as someone who was innovative in applying science to the regulation of cancer, not only in preventing It, but also in curing it.
Bill: And Sue, can you talk to us more about some of his breakthroughs, such as operating in a sterile environment?
Sue: Sure. He entered the medical profession at a time when most physicians did not recognize the role that bacteria played in causing infections. I can’t stress enough how bizarre [LAUGHS] it is at this point in history to look back – even during the Civil War, surgeons sometimes even moistened sutures with their own saliva and rolled the threads between their dirty fingers before they closed a wound. Medical instruments were often rinsed off in water that had been contaminated by previous operations. When Dr. Park was an Intern and House Physician at Chicago’s Cook County Hospital in 1876, he saw how many patients were dying from blood poisoning, which is bacterial infections of the bloodstream, and he was one of the first physicians to champion the cause of having an antiseptic area for surgery. People were not always eager just to adopt that new practice, but he was one of them who did, and he insisted that people wear masks and gloves and that carbolic acid be used to sterilize the surgical site during surgery.
Bill: That’s very interesting. We just take these things for granted nowadays. We see on TV shows the surgeons scrubbing up and putting off the masks on and antiseptics. Well, somebody had to be the first go to, “Wait a minute, maybe our dirty hands are causing infection. Maybe we need to clean our hands and put masks on to not promote bacteria.” It’s very interesting. We never think about those things, but now that you talk about it, you go, “Geez, that’s right.” Somebody at one point had to say, ”Hey, wait a minute, maybe our dirty hands are causing further infection and making the patients sick,” so we have Dr. Park to thank for that. I know he was also instrumental in patient privacy as well. Can you tell us about that?
Sue: Dr. Park was the Medical Director of the 1901 Panamerican Exposition in Buffalo, which famously was the event at which President McKinley was assassinated. Part of the design of the fair was that people were brought from other parts of the world to create little villages so that people who lived in Buffalo shot had never been outside of the state, and probably would never travel outside the country, could learn a little bit about what people’s lives were like in other parts of the world. At one point, during the fair, a man who worked there who came from another country was stricken ill and was taken to the Emergency Hospital, which had been constructed on the fairgrounds. It was designed by Dr. Park for emergency cases. The gentleman was taken there for treatment, and Dr. Park did that so that the man could be with his family and wouldn’t be far away from people who could translate for him. He made it a point because there were always reporters around trying to get sensational stories – what’s going on? Did somebody get shot? What’s happening with the patients there? – and he made it very clear to the people who worked at the fair that patients were putting their lives, their health, and their privacy in the hands of the people at the hospital and he insisted that patients should be treated with every courtesy and with becoming privacy. Those were his words. He said, “No name should be given out without the consent of the patient,” records were private and in his own words, “Our hospital was a retreat and an asylum to which those who were sick and injured could come when they desired for refuge from the public, and that from this rule there should be no departure.” He absolutely believed that what happened to patients within those walls should be private.
Bill: That is amazing. What a great story that is. Again, you never think about these things, but then when you hear about the person that was instrumental in bringing about these changes, it really puts it in perspective about the accomplishments of Dr. Park. It truly is amazing. I know you touched on this a little bit at the beginning, but can you talk about that a little bit, of the legacy of the Roswell Park Cancer Institute and how it became, really the first cancer research institute in the world?
Sue: Dr. Park, as I said, was recognizing that some diseases were being wiped off of the face of the earth because science had been brought there to try to solve what caused them and how they could be prevented or cured. As they fell off the list of the most dreaded diseases, the ones that were the greatest killers, he saw that cancer was rising to the top. He predicted accurately that that would continue to happen over the next several years, so where do you get support to try to bring together the scientists, the medicine, and the equipment that’s needed to do that? He went to the legislature and the Governor of the State of New York and proposed that this was a public health issue and so public monies should be applied to this. He asked the Governor and the Legislature for $10,000 to establish a laboratory in Buffalo that would be used exclusively for cancer research. Both houses of the legislature approved the $10,000 fund. The Governor vetoed it, and Dr. Park came back to Buffalo, but he was not discouraged or dissuaded because he knew that the following year would be an election year, so he went back and promoted his case once again, and this time the Governor saw the light and everyone approved the $10,000 to establish the laboratory, which was housed at the University of Buffalo.
Bill: Again, another incredible story and persistence pay off, and we’re glad that Dr. Park was persistent in his trying to get research funds from the state. Another great story and thank you, for sharing that with us. And Sue, can you tell us, how does his legacy live on today?
Sue: I think the principles he set forth for the laboratory, which eventually also included a hospital, are very much in place today. He saw that all disciplines in Oncology work together. You can’t have just the surgeon. You have to have also the Epidemiologist to figure out what the source of the disease is and you have to have all the people – as we would say today, now we have Radiation Oncology, we have Medical Oncology, and we have Surgical Oncology, and all the people in those fields have to talk together, and we do that. We have multidisciplinary conferences where our physicians get together and discuss the case from various aspects. Somebody might say, “Well, I’m in Radiation Medicine. I might be able to shrink that tumor with radiation before you start chemotherapy and that might be more effective.” They discuss these cases together at these multidisciplinary conferences. That’s very much what Dr. Park had in mind, to bring together everybody from various aspects of medicine to look at the case and what would work best for each patient.
Bill: Sue, that coordination of care, vitally important, another breakthrough that Dr. Park has taught us. Well, I so enjoy talking to you, and I know there’s much more to this story so hopefully, we can have you back again to talk more about Dr. Roswell Park and his amazing accomplishments. Sue, thank you again for your time today, and for more information visit RoswellPark.org, that’s RoswellPark.org. You’re listening to Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center Cancer Talk. I’m Bill Klaproth, thanks for listening.