Dr. David J. VanderWeele is an Assistant Clinical Investigator in the Laboratory of Genitourinary Cancer Pathogenesis at the National Cancer Institute. He is particularly interested in investigating the progression of clinically significant prostate cancer.
Prostatepedia spoke with him about why he became a doctor.
Why did you become a doctor?
Dr. VanderWeele: Physicians come to the job through a number of ways. For me, it was both an interest in biology in general and in cancer biology specifically. I really enjoyed learning in undergraduate school, and later on in training, how cancer represents a normal biological process gone awry.
Of course, many people also have a family member who helped inspire their choice, either directly or subconsciously. My mother had breast cancer; I’m sure that was part of my internal motivation and interest in oncology.
How did you end up specializing in prostate cancer?
Dr. VanderWeele: I was interested in genitourinary oncology—prostate cancer, bladder cancer, kidney cancer, and testicular cancer—because there is a wide range in the natural history of those diseases and how we treat them. I became especially interested in prostate cancer in part because some prostate cancers are very aggressive and others are more indolent. The first step of managing prostate cancer is assessing the risk of the disease and not just treating all cancers the same way.
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