Correspondence to: Barnett S. Kramer, M.D., M.P.H., Editor-in-Chief, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 8120 Woodmont Ave. Suite 500, Bethesda, MD 20814-2743 (e-mail: kate.travis{at}oupjournals.org).
When Dan Ihde passed the reins of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute to me 11 years ago this very issue, he shared several words of wisdom. "If you make the right decision 80% of the time," one of his adages went, "you'll be the greatest editor who ever lived." But more than his words, it was Dan himself who set the mark for fine editorship, exceptional scholarship, and integrity. There could be no better mentor.
We at the Journal and in the clinical oncology community at large mourn the loss of Daniel C. Ihde, M.D., who died December 9 at age 61. It is a particular loss for those of us whom he mentored and taught the value of rigorous thinking. That rigor was complemented by his delightful dry sense of humor.
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He began as a medical oncology fellow, later becoming a senior investigator at the NCI-VA Medical Oncology Branch and then deputy chief of the Navy Medical Oncology Branch at the National Naval Medical Center. He also served as director of the Division of Hematology and Oncology at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland. He served as deputy director of NCI from 1991 until 1994, and he was editor of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute from 1989 until 1994.
During his tenure at NCI, Dan trained scores of oncology fellows in clinical medicine and in the conduct and design of clinical trials. Many of the people Dan worked with and trained are now leaders in the field. He had a remarkable ability to teach, guide, and encourage those around him. "Dan could in a very calm, nonjudgmental way, guide you to the right decision," says John Minna, M.D., who worked closely with Dan for more than 10 years at NCI.
Many of us have stories of Dan's impressive encyclopedic memory. Minna recalled a presentation at an international lung cancer meeting where, after the lecture, Dan questioned the presenter on his research, saying that it didn't agree with that group's prior work. When the presenter disagreed, Dan cited the exact paper and table number that contained the data that contradicted the presentation that had just been made.
"The whole room was silent," Minna recalls. "Dan had actually remembered the data better than the person who had done the research."
Dan excelled as an administrator. "His clinical knowledge and insights were legendary," says Samuel Broder, M.D., who served as NCI director from 1988 to 1995, and who appointed Dan as NCI deputy director in 1991. "He was an effective counterweight to overly optimistic or enthusiastic viewpoints. You got a real grounding in reality whenever you dealt with Dan."
By all accounts, Dan achieved great professional success, largely a result of his intellect coupled with his kind demeanor; he never sought credit or personal gain. "A lot of people ... were mostly interested in their own career and getting ahead," says Paul A. Bunn, Jr., M.D., who was a fellow with Dan at NCI in the 1970s. "Dan was the antithesis of all that. He wanted to get it right for right's sake, not for his own personal advancement."
While he was editor of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Dan set the tone for excellence with his good judgment of data. He could recognize a truly well-designed study and turn a good manuscript into an outstanding final product. He made sure the Journal was a top-notch publication.
I quote Dan's wisdom regularly, whether it is regarding a clinical decision or an editorial decision at the Journal. Many of us will remember Dan for his great dry wit. Although Dan never said an unkind word, many of us will recall with a knowing chuckle some of his anecdotes that are part of the rich oral history.
Outside of his professional life, he enjoyed a rich personal life with his wife Mary, whom he met while at Stanford, and their two sons, Steven and Douglas. They took many trips as a family, visiting Maine, Nova Scotia, Yellowstone National Park, Switzerland, and Shenandoah National Park. Mary is a remarkable person in her own right. Dan justifiably always thought the world of Mary.
Dan was as well versed in classic literature and classic film trivia as he was in clinical oncology. "When he went to college, he majored in math and chemistry, but he read the 100 great books on the side," says Mary Ihde. Many of us recall having long, in-depth conversations with Dan about history, politics, classic literature, movies, and food perhaps as often as we discussed chemotherapy regimens and trial designs. I treasure the daily conversations we had over lunch while we were both at the NCI-Navy Medical Oncology Branch.
He left NCI in 1994 to become chief of oncology at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis until 1997, and he concluded his career at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida. Those who met him late in his career met a man already in the early stages of a progressive memory disorder. It was his longtime colleagues who picked up on small lapses that might have been overlooked in someone else; it was not Dan's nature to forget a single detail about his patients. In January 1999, Dan received his diagnosis, which he accepted with remarkable equanimity. He and Mary returned to Dan's home state of New Mexico in November 1999.
Dan was a mentor, a colleague, a role model, and a friend to me. It is unfortunate that the next generation of oncologists will not benefit from his kind demeanor and towering intellect. Although Dan's humble nature would have never allowed him to qualify himself as one of the greatest editors who ever lived, I qualify him as one of the greatest human beings I have known.
NOTES
Special thanks to Samuel Broder, M.D., Paul A. Bunn, Jr., M.D., John Minna, M.D., Alan Rabson, M.D., and Mary Ihde for sharing memories of Dan with Journal news editor Katherine Arnold Travis for this article.
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