March 19, 2004

Professor? Please take a chair ...

In a ceremony at Harvard Medical School (HMS) March 2, a new professorship in Radiation Oncology was established and two MGH physicians were named incumbents to radiation oncology professorships at HMS. The physicians honored are Herman Suit, MD, former chief of Radiation Oncology, Jay Loeffler, MD, current chief of Radiation Oncology, and William Shipley, MD, deputy head of clinical research for MGH Radiation Oncology.

The Herman and Joan Suit Professorship of Radiation Oncology was established to celebrate the career of the first chief of MGH Radiation Oncology. Suit formed the Department of Radiation Oncology and developed it into an internationally renowned department. He also initiated proton radiation therapy — a treatment that delivers highly targeted, precise radiation to tumor sites — at the Harvard Cyclotron. In partnership with a team of physicists, engineers and physicians, this led to the creation of the Northeast Proton Therapy Center at the MGH.

The first incumbent to the Suit chair is Jay Loeffler, MD, current chief of MGH Radiation Oncology. Loeffler began his career with the Joint Center for Radiation Therapy at HMS in 1983 where he developed techniques to deliver focal, high-dose radiation for brain and skull base tumors. In 1996, he joined MGH Radiation Oncology as medical director of the service that became the Northeast Proton Therapy Center. He has expanded those treatments and is a world leader in the field of neuro-oncology. In 2000, Loeffler was named chief of MGH Radiation Oncology and the Andres Soriano Professorship of Radiation Oncology.

William Shipley, MD, is moving into the incumbency of the Soriano Professorship. Specializing in the treatment of patients with urologic malignancies, Shipley has spent three decades at the MGH. He is the initiator of the successful treatment of patients with urinary bladder cancer by combining radiation and chemotherapy. The result is the preservation of bladder anatomy function. Shipley also has been a central figure in the design of a series of clinical trials to find new treatments for prostate cancer.

"These physicians have touched — either directly or indirectly — millions of lives throughout the world through their incredible work," says Peter L. Slavin, president of the MGH. "The MGH has been blessed with a long tradition of distinguished and innovative leaders in radiation oncology. I am very proud to honor their academic and medical contributions."