Dr. Robert Donoway is trying to spread the word that cancer isn’t a death sentence
“It’s not as bleak as people make it. What people don’t realize is, 50 percent of the patients who are diagnosed and seen are cured,” he said. “Certainly some are going to be worse than others, but what we have found is that the earlier the cancer is diagnosed, the more treatable and potentially curable it is.
“As a consequence, we need to get more information out to the public regarding the importance of evaluating what the individual may feel is a minor problem.”
Donoway, 45, of Weston, developed a keen interest in cancer treatment after his father came down with widespread colon cancer. He has been doing his level best to get the word out that a cure depends on early diagnosis.
The surgical oncologist at Hollywood Medical Center is president-elect of the board of directors for the American Cancer Society of Broward County.
“There’s a tremendous amount of good that goes on, not just because of the fund raising, but because of the interaction of support groups and volunteer efforts of everyone involved,” he said.
Donoway is also the medical adviser for a breast cancer task force which looks for ways to relay cancer information to underserved populations in Broward County. One way is to provide translations for people whose first language is not English.
Donoway also sits on the state’s cancer research committee, reviewing applications for grants and giving funds to universities with meritorious research projects.
He is chairman of the Cancer Committee for the Memorial Healthcare System and, until recently was medical director of the Memorial Regional Cancer Center, in charge of the cancer treatment program for the South Broward Hospital District.
So, when does he find time to spend with wife Catherine Popkin, a gastroenterologist, and their daughters Elizabeth, 3, and Alexandra, 2?
“That’s what I was asking myself last night in the operating room at 9:30,” he said with a chuckle.
Still, cancer treatment is the vocation for which Donoway found a special calling. He was doing a fellowship in reconstructive surgery when he learned his father had widespread metastatic colon cancer.
“In the next seven years, every member of my family died of cancer: father, uncle, aunt, two grandparents and, in 1991, it ended with my mother — a non-smoker — dying of lung cancer,” he said. “Being an oncologist was something in which I felt a strong commitment.”
He said today the prognosis for cancer patients has never been brighter.
“Even patients that have … pancreatic cancer or metastatic colon cancer, when found at an appropriate stage, still can be provided with a reasonable outcome,” he said. “Twenty years ago, that would not have been possible.”
