YSMU Visiting Professor Jacek Toporski from Karolinska University Hospital, Sweden; pediatric oncologist and bone marrow transplant specialist is sure: pediatric oncology equals collaboration.<\/p>\n
Within the framework of the 15th<\/sup> Asian Conference of the International Society of Pediatric Oncology (SIOP) held at the medical university, we spoke with the Polish professor about the importance of the medical profession, its advantages and disadvantages, and the prospects of cooperation between Armenian and international pediatric oncologists. <\/p>\n – How did you choose medicine?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n – There is no history of being doctor in my family, so, I am the fist one. From the beginning I wanted to be a physician. So, every year of my study was just confirmation that I did right thing. And I was really keen to work with the patients. Already from the 4th<\/sup> or 5th<\/sup> year of my medical education I told that pediatric oncology was the best, because there was network of people working at that time, there were a lot of things to do, and it was a new evolving field with a lot of research and a lot of progress. Originally, I am from Poland, and at that time Poland was much behind the Western countries in pediatric oncology. And I have seen the gap, but now Poland is in the same group with Western countries. Then I moved to Sweden because I would like to see how other people were working. I would like to join and build a network. So, that’s even more important to know people, to have friends, to be able to communicate, to ask questions, to be in the discussion, to write protocols, joint studies. This is the pediatric oncology. <\/p>\n – Could you mention advantages and disadvantages of the profession of a pediatric oncologist?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n – The disadvantage is that we are now not able to cure every patient. Advantage is that you are pediatric oncologist because you want to help very sick kids, you want to cure them. And looking back in the early 80s when there was no chance to be cured for more than 80 percent of children, now we can cure more than 80 percent of children. So, this is what we have done over last 30 years. We still hope that in the near future we will be able to cure most of them. <\/p>\n – How do you see the perspectives of collaboration between the Armenian and international specialists?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n – Pediatric oncology equals collaboration. This is the same I would say. We can not work in a different way. Because in fact we have very small numbers, small volumes of patients. So, we have to collaborate, because otherwise we won’t get enough experience to be a good pediatric oncologist. We have to use the experience of the other centers, we have to plan for international studies, we have to really collect as much data as we can in our small groups of patients. I would strongly advise pediatric oncologists from Armenia to join the existing network as much as possible, and contribute to their experience. I think, this is very important. <\/p>\n – What advice would you give to our students, future pediatric oncologists?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n – I would say pediatric oncology is the best specialty that exists. And I would advise all the students to try, to have the feeling what is it about. Even if they don’t want to be finally a pediatric oncologist, they should have some knowledge, because they can meet the patient before the diagnosis, under treatment that they have to handle. So, I think an idea what pediatric oncology is generally important for every doctor, that’s one thing. And the second: those who are really devoted to the field, they should do it, they should be active. We need enthusiastic, motivated young doctors. They should show that they are interested and want to work in this field. We face the problems as well, but I think our aim is much easier to go to fight with these problems. Being together we are much stronger.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Author: Tatevik Ghazaryan<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Photo by: Mari Galstyan <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" YSMU Visiting Professor Jacek Toporski from Karolinska University Hospital, Sweden; pediatric oncologist and bone marrow transplant specialist is sure: pediatric oncology equals collaboration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[372],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-139345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interviews"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n