Stories behind a precious photo

Who are they in this photo (Figure 1)? When and where was this photo shot? As shown by the background you may see, it was taken at the 16^th World Conference on Lung Cancer (WCLC) which was successfully held between 6 and 9 September, 2015. In this great photo are the Co-Editor-in-Chief, the Guest Editor, as well as 15 authors of the journal Translational Lung Cancer Research (TLCR). They all gathered together because of a focused issue themed as “Improving the Quality and Outcomes of Lung Cancer Care: An Interdisciplinary Approach”, which was published in the 2015 August Issue of TLCR (Vol 4, No 4).

Figure 1 A precious photo. Back row (standing), left to right: Xinhua Yu, MD, PhD. University of Memphis School of Public Health, Memphis, USA; Paul A. VanderLaan, MD. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA; Nick Faris, M.Div. Thoracic Oncology Research Group, Baptist Cancer Center, Memphis, USA; Matt Smeltzer, M. Stat, PhD. University of Memphis School of Public Health, Memphis, USA; Ken Ward, PhD. University of Memphis School of Public Health, Memphis, USA; Ramon Rami-Porta, MD. Chair, IASLC Staging and Prognostic Factors Committee. Hospital Universitari Mutua Terrassa, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain; Chris Lathan, MD. Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, USA; Frank Detterbeck, MD. Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, USA; Peter Goldstraw, MBBS. Royal Brompton Hospital, London, UK; Caroline Chiles, MD. Department of Radiology, Wake Forest Health Sciences Center, Winston-Salem, USA; Feng-Ming (Spring) Kong, MD. Georgia Regents University Cancer Center and Medical Colege of Georgia, Augusta, USA; Chun Chieh Lin, PhD, MBA. American Cancer Society, Atlanta, USA. Front row (crouching), left to right: Satish Kedia, PhD. University of Memphis School of Public Health, Memphis, USA; Song Yong, MD. Co-Editor-in-Chief of TLCR. Nanjing, China; Ray Osarogiagbon, MBBS. Guest Editor. Baptist Cancer Center, Memphis, USA; Larry Leon, PhD. Genentech, Inc. South San Francisco, USA; Federico Cappuzzo, MD. Department of Oncology, Instituto Toscano Tumori, Ospedale Civile, Livorno, Italy. Here we also would like to thank all the other contributors who could not appear in this photo.

Here I would like to tell a story behind this precious photo which is about a group of experts whom I have been lucky enough to get in touch with. Thanks to them, we have seen such a significant special issue on “Improving the Quality and Outcomes of Lung Cancer Care: An Interdisciplinary Approach” to come out before the WCLC this year, and we can see such a happy photo gathering smiles of these prominent experts in the field of multidisciplinary lung cancer research across the world.

First of all, I would like to introduce the Guest Editor of this focused issue, Professor Raymond U. Osarogiagbon, who serves as Director of the Thoracic Oncology Research Group at Baptist Cancer Center, Memphis TN, USA. It was Professor Raymond U. Osarogiagbon who has kicked off the story when he sent us a thoughtful proposal which provided not only the topic list of a complete special issue, but also the specific topic scope, main authors and co-authors of each topic, in total 16 topics which we now see in the focused issue. Under Professor Osarogiagbon’s vigorous and meticulous organization, this high-quality issue took only 6 months from invitation to publication, involving efforts from almost 50 authors throughout the world, such as authors from the United States, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Italy, Romania, Japan, Spain etc. The range of topics is as Professor Osarogiagbon introduced in his editorial preface for this focused issue, “Our team of contributors spans the globe and spans the spectrum of perspectives on lung cancer care delivery from academic researchers to community-level care providers. The topics span the spectrum of lung cancer care from epidemiology and tobacco control, to diagnosis, treatment and outcomes improvement. We have sought to provide a forum for an evidence-based discussion of the challenges of delivering high quality care to patients with lung cancer, in the places where they choose to seek care; quantify the breach in the quality wall; examine scientifically rigorous and practical steps to close the breach and thereby reduce the numbers of our lung cancer dead” (1).

Squeezing to publish this significant focused issue before the WCLC in September, the Guest Editor Professor Osarogiagbon has done tremendous work throughout the whole special issue on paper supervising (thanks Ms. LeeAnn Shaw for her kind assistance as well). Here I also would like to thank all these world-class authors for their timely and remarkable contributions to this focused issue. It is their valuable contributions that have made this focused issue so significant!

Finally, the WCLC came in September. With this great chance of WCLC which attracted over 10,000 attendees worldwide, Professor Raymond U. Osarogiagbon proposed to take a group photo with contributors during the conference. Though not every author could attend this conference, we were happy to know that 15 of them were able to gather for the group photo. However, as some of them had to make oral presentations, the time and place for the photo had to be coordinated. When I saw the Emails flying forth and back among these experts in order to find the most appropriate time available to all the 15 authors and Guest Editors and Co-Editor-in-Chief, I was profoundly touched by their enthusiasm. Eventually, with the hard copies presented by Professor Yong Song (the Co-Editor-in-Chief of TLCR) to the Guest Editor and authors onsite, the precious photo came out. And the hard copies of the focused issue “Improving the Quality and Outcomes of Lung Cancer Care: An Interdisciplinary Approach” held in their hands are the result of all their co-efforts (including those who did not appear in the photo).

It is not easy to gather about 20 experts across the world for a photo, especially for TLCR, which is an international English journal with Editors-in-Chief, Editorial Board Members, Guest Editors and Authors from more than 30 countries. But it has been done!

As quoted from Professor Raymond U. Osarogiagbon’s editorial preface, “‘For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also’. There are many dead things in life. Faith without works is dead. So is knowledge without implementation”. Because of the faith in pursuing the brave goal of “reducing the numbers of our lung cancer dead” by substantially improving implementation of evidence-based lung cancer care as these encouraging words indicate, the brilliant issue was timely born, and so was this cherished photo. I have faith that more remarkable work and even wonder will be created as a result of this special issue of TLCR.

Acknowledgements

Here I would like to thank Dr Hongbing Liu from Department of Respiratory Medicine, Jinling Hospital, Nanjing University School of Medicine, Nanjing, China, for his great efforts to provide this precious photo.

Footnote

Conflicts of Interest: The author has no conflicts of interest to declare.

References

1. Osarogiagbon RU. Editorial preface to this special issue “Improving the quality and outcomes of lung cancer care: an interdisciplinary approach”. Transl Lung Cancer Res 2015;4:322-6. [PubMed]