Dr. César Rodríguez, new president of SEOM

2023-09-22 16:40:43

Dr. César Rodríguez is the new president of the Spanish Society of Medical Oncology (SEOM), replacing Dr. Enriqueta Felip.

Dr. César Rodríguez, new president of the Spanish Society of Medical Oncology (SEOM)/Courted photo

He Dr. César Rodríguez has assumed the presidency of SEOM after the General Assembly of Members held during the Congress of this medical society, which took place this week in Barcelona and concludes today.

The presidency of SEOM changes every two years and since October 2021, Dr. Rodríguez has been the vice president of the organization.

César Rodríguez is head of the Section of the Medical Oncology Service at the University Clinical Hospital of Salamanca.

He Dr. Javier de Castrohead of the Section of the Medical Oncology Service at the La Paz University Hospital in Madrid, has been elected vice president.

The new president of SEOM has indicated that one of his lines of work will be based on “giving continuity to those projects that since the presidency of the Dr. Enriqueta Felip “They have been strategic.”

In this area, everything that has to do with access to drugsPrecision Medicine and the call for research aid grants.

“On the first issue, in recent years some progress has been made in approaching the administrations, the Ministry of Health and the Spanish Medicines Agency, but there is still a long way to go in this regard,” he said about access to medicines.

According to the Precision Medicinepoints out that the Observatory will continue and “we must see how SEOM can contribute to making access to the different territorial plans more homogeneous, identifying in each of the territories what role we can play so that it arrives more quickly and equitable to all the Autonomous Communities.”

Doctor César Rodríguez: prevention and quality

Dr. César Rodríguez also advances new strategic lines that he plans to implement.

“He European plan to fight cancer considers essential the areas related to the prevention and Medical Oncology cannot be left out of the dissemination of strategies in both screening and primary prevention,” he highlighted.

Along the same lines, he has indicated that “everything that has to do with exercise and healthy lifestyle habits will be reinforced because it is increasingly being shown that they influence the prognosis of already diagnosed patients and therefore, they have a real impact. not only in quality of life, but also in survival.”

To do this, it proposes to “identify how SEOM can generate a culture of implementation of units in some areas, such as physical exercise and that reinforce the role of healthy living habits; Oncology is not only treatment, it is not only Precision Medicine, it is not only new drugs, but we also want to play a leading role in primary and secondary prevention.”

Another outstanding strategy for Dr. César Rodríguez is the area of ​​quality. “In the coming years, the accreditation of Oncology Services with different standards of quality and SEOM wants to become the guarantor of the advice of all the requirements and procedures that will be necessary.”

To do this, he explains, “a Working Group has been created, which will be led by the Dr. Charo García Campelo, to work on training in quality accreditation, and that partners can turn to it to seek advice and access quality programs.”

Cover of “Cancer, survival manual” by oncologist Javier de Castro. Photo provided

Long survivors and data

The Working Group of Long Survivorsled by the Dra. Ruth Verawill also be promoted from two aspects.

The first, “in disease-free patients, long-term survivors, developing consensus documents in collaboration with other scientific societies on how to address all existing challenges.”

The second, “in the new figure of long-term survivors with an uncured disease, in which new treatment strategies mean that although they are carriers of the disease, they can have long-term survival, which generates a scenario that until now, except in some tumors, we did not contemplate and it will also require new recommendations and positioning.”

“And then there is another line of work that we also consider strategic, says Dr. César Rodríguez- that of results and clinical practice.

“At the moment I’m here wants to embark on a large project on real-life data and access to information, launching artificial intelligence tools, trying to overcome barriers that we currently have, mainly administrative, and so that we can generate a culture of obtaining real-life data that allows access to massive data, for example, on access to results of a certain indication under conditions of conventional practice, toxicity, prescription patterns, equity, approval times, etc.,” he highlighted.

Patients, students and Latin America

Dr. Rodríguez also considers it important to approach two groups: patients, participating in aspects that favor their training and participation at all levels, and medical students, making the specialty known from a much more updated and modern point of view than allows us to improve the image of Medical Oncology for future MIRs.

And, he recognizes a pending issue that he also wants to address, “generating ties with Latin America, with Spanish-speaking scientific societies, creating a forum for identifying common needs.”