Chapter 02: An Overview of a Surgeon’s Education
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Description
In this chapter, Dr. Goepfert sketches his surgical training in Chile, the U.S. and Germany. He explains that he “fell into” surgery as a result of his training in his native country of Chile in the 1960s, where he started as a general surgeon. His interest in cancer grew just as the American Society of Clinical Oncology was being created (1965), and chemotherapy was generally put in the hands of surgeons. He describes how he received a fellowship in 1964 to go to UCLA to train in the chemotherapeutic management of solid tumors, then extending his visa to come to MD Anderson to train under Drs. John Stahling and Dr. Richard Jesse. He spent four years in Stuttgart, Germany, setting up a radiation therapy unit at a the Katherinenhospital, then was offered a job at MD Anderson by Richard Jess. Dr. Goepfert had to pass his board certification, and so became a Resident at Baylor.
Identifier
GeopfertH_01_20120827_C02
Publication Date
8-27-2012
City
Houston, Texas
Interview Session
Helmuth Goepfert, MD, Oral History Interview, August 27, 2012
Topics Covered
The Interview Subject's Story - Educational Path; Educational Path; Understanding Cancer, the History of Science, Cancer Research; The History of Health Care, Patient Care; Joining MD Anderson
Transcript
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Now, in your particular focus within this whole world of dealing with the head and neck, how would you describe what your career has been about?
Helmuth Goepfert, MD:
My career has been basically surgery, and I basically fell into head and neck surgery on the training I had as a fellow back in the ‘60s. When I originally trained in my home country of Chile, I trained as a general surgeon. That means you take care of everything that you can cut on. In those days the subspecialty was very limited. I obtained a fellowship to come to the United States in the field of cancer chemotherapy, which was sort of the parent organization for medical oncology. This was—I mean—the biggest society of medical oncology today as you know it is the American Society of Clinical Oncology—ASCO. ASCO was born in 1965, so before that it didn’t exist, and before that the solid tumors—that excludes leukemia, lymphomas and so forth—the management, as far as chemotherapy was concerned, was in the hand of surgeons. It didn’t develop as a medical subspecialty until some of the hematologists that treated solid tumors formed a new society. I obtained a fellowship back in 1964 to come to UCLA, into the Department of Surgery, to train myself in the chemotherapy management of solid tumors. It was relatively simple in those days—relatively simple. There were a few drugs that were available. There certainly wasn’t the sophistication that exists nowadays for that. The evaluation of this treatment was done in a mainly clinical basis. There were no CT scans available, no MRIs. The imagining was sort of limited. Pathology certainly was already developed as far as the clinical pathology and anatomical pathology, but certainly there was nothing of molecular pathology—a sort of subcellular level pathology that didn’t exist in those days. So then, from UCLA, where I spent two years, I obtained an extension of my visa to come to MD Anderson. Again, I was transferred onto a research program that was under a surgeon.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
How did you find out about that program, and how did you end up coming to MD Anderson?
Helmuth Goepfert, MD:
Because my mentor at UCLA was a good friend of mine that sort of took me under his wings then. He was Dr. John Stehlin, whom you may know as associated with the Stehlin Foundation here in Houston at St. Joe’s Hospital. I was his last fellow here. I arrived July 1, 1966, and he left February 1, 1967. Rather than being ousted, Dr. Richard Jesse, who had a program of regional chemotherapy, took me under his wings. That’s how I became familiar with head and neck surgery. I stayed an extra year here in order to acquire more knowledge of oncologic surgery under Dr. [Richard] Martin, Dr. [Edgar] White, Richard Jesse, and people like that. So, then I was a surgeon. I did give chemotherapy. I returned back home again, and things didn’t work out the way I wanted them to, so I applied for an immigrant visa in the United States. The immigrant visa took at least 6 months to a year. I got invited to Stuttgart, to the Katherinenhospital, to be the one that organized, for the radiation chemotherapy department, solid tumor chemotherapy—again, something that today you would consider totally normal, but the knowledge of solid tumor chemotherapy didn’t evolve then as rapidly as it evolved after ASCO was created. So, I spent six months there, and then I came to the United States. Again, Dr. Jesse helped me in a sense of offering me a job. I was project research investigator, but I had no residency training towards a board certification. I knew nothing about not having a board certification. So, I was lucky enough to obtain a residency position at Baylor College of Medicine under Bobby Alford. I obtained my training in otolaryngology, and I graduated from that program and did my American Board of Otolaryngology in 1974.
Recommended Citation
Goepfert, Helmuth MD and Rosolowski, Tacey A. PhD, "Chapter 02: An Overview of a Surgeon’s Education" (2012). Interview Chapters. 1001.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/1001
Conditions Governing Access
Open
