MYRL'S TOP TEN

Chiricahua National Monument

mid 1980s

 

Ten top take-aways from the Ovarian Cancer Research Symposium, held at Seattle University and sponsored by the Marsha Rivkin Center for Ovarian Cancer Research.

I attended the first sessions, but my brain screamed “maximum overload” at the end of the day, so I came home a day early.  I will puzzle over the Abstract volume at leisure, and if I find something earth-shaking – that I can understand - I will get back to you.  In the meantime: 

1)      Demographics:  Of the 300 participants, about 65% were white Anglo-Saxon/European types, 35% were Asian, and <1% were something else.  One of the presenters was an African-American woman.

2)      More Demographics:    Well more than half of the audience consisted of women, but most of the presenters were men.

3)      Asian presenters were reasonably easy to understand if they were Chinese, but essentially incomprehensible if they were from India.  This ran completely contrary to my expectations.

4)      An outsider such as myself may know what many biochemical/cancer biology terms mean, but when they are strung together and spit at you rapidly, forget it.

5)      Cancer people serve better lunches than geology people, and they furnish breakfast to boot.  This despite the fact that most cancer people are M.D.s, hence can afford to buy their own food.

6)      Cancer people are kind to old folks, and even stop to talk to them.  Rock people simply trample then into the dust.

7)      The most important person at any symposium, by far, is the audio-visual technician.

8)      Tenure-track (or tenured) cancer people give oral presentations; their graduate students present posters after dinner, when nobody wants to learn more science.

9)      There are a whole lot of bright young cancer people, not to mention wise and experienced old ducks, all apparently working diligently on curing ovarian cancer.  Why haven’t we made more progress?

10)   Dr. Saul Rivkin is, indisputably, a very great man.  A this conference he chaired a session and gave a talk.  By force of will and determination he brought this organization and this conference into being, raised upwards of $14 million for ovarian cancer research, and has arranged for most of it to be given to bright young people with clever, frequently innovative, ideas.  On the side he took care of cancer patients at Swedish Hospital for about 45 years.  He is nearly as old as I am, and still working every day for the cause.  More power to you, Saul!  I wish I could do more to help.