News

Beebe Medical Center Surgical Oncologist Appointed to State-Level Commission

02/19/09

Beebe Medical Center surgical oncologist James E. Spellman Jr., M.D., recently received a three-year appointment as the Delaware State Chair of the American College of Surgeons Commission on Cancer (CoC) Cancer Liaison Program. State Chairs are volunteer physicians who serve as representatives of the Commission on Cancer and provide leadership and support to the state's CoC-accredited cancer programs and the program's Cancer Liaison Physicians.

Dr. Spellman is among a network of 64 State Chairs that guide the activities of more
than 1,600 volunteer Cancer Liaison Physicians appointed in cancer programs across the country. Cancer Liaison Physicians are responsible for spearheading CoC initiatives within their cancer program; collaborating with agencies, such as the American Cancer Society (ACS), and implementing quality improvement initiatives to improve patient care.

Dr. Spellman, who has had his research published previously in medical journals,
has been a member of the Beebe Medical Staff for more than a decade and has worked closely with the oncology team at Tunnell Cancer Center. He also has served as the Liaison Physician between the Commission on Cancer and Tunnell Cancer Center, which is a Commission on Cancer Approved Cancer Program.

State Chairs work to facilitate presentation, use, and interpretation of data submitted to the CoC's National Cancer Database (NCDB). In the NCDB, the CoC collects data from its accredited cancer programs and provides tools back to these facilities for analysis of patterns of diagnosis, treatment and quality of care. The NCDB contains patient demographics, tumor characteristics, treatment, and outcomes information for over 22 million malignant cancers diagnosed and treated at hospital cancer programs in the United States between 1985 and 2006.

Dr. Spellman also will work with the American Cancer Society, state cancer registry, and health department to support data-driven comprehensive cancer control planning throughout the state. This collaborative effort is an integrated and coordinated approach to reducing cancer incidence, morbidity, and mortality. The CoC State Chair assists in the development and implementation of a state cancer plan, which identifies cancer issues, provides strategies of implementation, and evaluates the effectiveness of cancer control activities at the state and local levels.

Dr. Spellman is a fellowship trained surgical oncologist and prior to coming to Delaware was a member of the Department of Surgical Oncology at Roswell Park Cancer Institute under the direction of Nicholas Petrelli, MD who is presently the Medical Director of the Helen F Graham Cancer Center. Dr. Spellman is Board Certified in General Surgery and earned his medical degree at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He completed his residency at Stamford Hospital and his fellowship at the Pritzker School of Medicine, University of Chicago. He is a Fellow of The American College of Surgeons and of The Society of Surgical Oncology. Dr. Spellman's main area of expertise is Surgical Oncology with subspecialty expertise in Sarcoma and Melanoma.

In an effort to assist the more than 1.4million Americans diagnosed with cancer each year, State Chairs encourage Cancer Liaison Physicians in CoC-accredited cancer programs to share information on their facilities' resources, services, and annual cancer caseload with the American Cancer Society for dissemination to the public through its National Cancer Information Center and Web site at 1-800-ACS-2345 / www.cancer.org

The Commission on Cancer is a consortium of 44 professional organizations dedicated to improving the survival and quality of life for cancer patients. The Commission achieves its goal through standard-setting, cancer prevention, research, and educational activities as well as monitoring comprehensive quality care. Its membership includes national organizations representing the full spectrum of cancer care and Fellows of the American College of Surgeons. The Commission's core functions include establishing standards to ensure the delivery of quality, multidisciplinary, and comprehensive cancer care in health care settings; surveying facilities to assess compliance with those standards; collecting standardized data from accredited facilities to measure quality; using data to monitor treatment patterns, support cancer control and enhance clinical surveillance activities,; and developing effective educational interventions to improve outcomes at the national, state, and local level.

There are more than 1,400 CoC-accredited cancer programs in the United States
and Puerto Rico. About 80 percent of newly diagnosed cancer patients are treated in these institutions. For more information on the Cancer Liaison Program and the Commission on Cancer, contact the Commission on Cancer at the American College of Surgeons, 633 N. Saint Clair St., Chicago, IL 60611; call 312-202-5085; or visit http://www.facs.org/cancer

Beebe Medical Center is a not-for-profit community medical center with a charitable mission to encourage healthy living, prevent illness, and restore optimal health with the people residing, working, or visiting in the communities we serve. For more information, please visit us online at www.beebemed.org