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A Family Legacy—Compassionate Patient Care
Corynne Uhl, Cynthia Kuerer and Henry M. Kuerer, M.D., Ph.D, FACS, Program Director of Breast Surgical Oncology
June 2006Why does a young man decide to become a physician? The answers are often complex, but in this case it seems, the path was blazed long before he was born, by his grandmother, Corynne Uhl. When Corynne was born in 1913, the fifth of eight children, becoming a doctor was out of the question for a girl from a large family. That fact did not deter her in the slightest. Early on she had an affinity for taking care of the sick and later worked as a nurse's aide in Brooklyn, New York.
Corynne Uhl’s grandson, Henry Kuerer, M.D., Ph.D. says, “I have no doubt that if she had been born in the latter half of the century, she would have been a physician.” Dr. Kuerer was close to his grandmother who was in turn, proud of him and supportive of the advanced training program in breast surgical oncology that he directs at M. D. Anderson.
He knew he wanted to honor her 90-plus years of caring when she passed away earlier this year. At the same time he wanted to recognize exceptional, compassionate clinicians who are at the beginning of their careers at M. D. Anderson. He is doing both with an endowment to fund The Corynne S. Uhl Award for Compassionate Breast Cancer Patient Care. In an interesting twist, recently Dr. Kuerer was himself given an award funded by an endowment, the E. N. Cobb Faculty Scholar Award, which pleased his grandmother enormously.
But, why does that physician choose to specialize in breast cancer? Again, it was a turn in the family path. The affinity for patient care was handed down through Corynne Uhl’s daughter, Cynthia, who also became a nurse and a professional in clinical psychology. Cynthia’s experience with breast cancer and later with ovarian cancer gave her son a personal understanding of how a cancer diagnosis can affect the family and influenced his decision to become a breast cancer surgeon.
Ultimately, a medical institution benefits in many ways from the life choices set in motion by families like that of Dr. Kuerer. His latest decision, to establish the endowment, will perpetuate and strengthen the legacy of compassionate caring for clinicians following their own path at M. D. Anderson.