When he was in medical school, a friend told Dr. Richard Wender he should consider the field of family medicine. The appeal was instant.

I liked the idea of being someones physician, who they would name when someone asked, Whos your doctor? he explains. You treat all ages, he adds, while, from the patients standpoint, You dont have to know whats wrong before you come in.

I valued the doctor-patient relationship you could form, he said. I was interested in preventive care. Primary care is where you get a chance to do that.

Wender has been following that passion for more than 30 years, the past 11 as Alumni Professor and Chairman of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University.

Now, you might say, he is expanding his practice in a big way. The Merion Station resident was recently named to a newly-created position with the American Cancer Society. A longtime volunteer and former national president of the organization, he has been tapped to be its first chief cancer control officer.

In an announcement, the organization said the position was created as a part of the societys work to align resources to focus on the most effective strategies to fight cancer on a national and global scale.

Wender will officially take up his new duties full-time at the ACSs headquarters in Atlanta in November. He calls this a pivotal moment in redesigning how we deliver health care in the United States. There are outstanding opportunities to accelerate the war against cancer by working with the [health-care] system and our partners to make sure everyone has access to the right type of prevention and counseling, he said in an interview. That can be done, he said, by taking a sharper focus on the critical areas of prevention, cancer screening and early access to care. We want to take this fight globally.

A Pittsburgh native and Princeton University graduate, Wender received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 1979. He began residency at Thomas Jefferson, going on to direct the hospitals residency program in family medicine for 10 years. He was named vice chair of his department in 1995 and chair in 2002.

All of my career has been here in Philadelphia, he said. Friends encouraged Wender and wife Diane, who holds a law degree from Penn and currently serves as the universitys research integrity officer, to settle in Lower Merion. The couple has a daughter who attended and graduated Lower Merion schools. What could be better than living seven miles from work in such a beautiful area?

Wender said, in addition to his patient practice, his primary academic focus has been on cancer prevention and screening. He has served in a variety of volunteer capacities with the American Cancer Society for 26 years, since a colleague asked him to help start a newsletter for primary care doctors. It became a national publication. Continued...

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Dr. Richard Wender named ACS's first-ever Chief Cancer Control Officer