SGO Meeting Fuels Hope, Collaboration in Gynecologic Cancer Care

Attending meetings like the SGO Annual Meeting on Women's Cancer is driven by a shared commitment to patients and advancing access to care, according to Ginger J. Gardner, vice chair of hospital operations in the Department of Surgery at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Gardner said patient perspectives are a powerful motivator, recalling one patient who hoped the next breakthrough presented at the meeting would be for them. That urgency is why clinicians step away from their practices and families to come together as a scientific community.

She emphasized that in-person discussions go beyond what can be learned from journals or social media, helping translate research into real-world solutions and expand access to new treatments across communities.

Gardner added that she leaves each annual meeting feeling both exhausted and inspired, driven by the progress made and the work still ahead.

Cure: What motivates you and your colleagues to come together at meetings like SGO, and how do these in-person discussions help advance research and access to new treatments for patients?

Dr. Gardner: I think of so many of my patients. One of my patients, knowing that I was coming to this meeting, said, “I hope that the next breakthrough at that meeting is going to be for me.” That’s really why we stop everything in our lives. We leave our families, step away from our practices, pack a suitcase and travel to come together as a scientific community, because it’s that important.

It is so central for us to build new solutions, further research and provide avenues of hope for our patients. That’s why we come together. It’s one thing to read findings in a journal or see them on social media, but it’s another to gather and have scientific dialogue in person. From that, we can build the next conversations about how to get these advances to all

communities, how to make them patient-facing and how to ensure everyone has access to new findings — and how to do that now.

I always leave the SGO Annual Meeting inspired by what we’ve come together to accomplish. I remember attending as a new member and trying to find my way at such a pivotal event in the year for the scientific community. Every year since, I’ve been inspired by what we’re doing together as we share research and new findings.

So I leave the annual meeting feeling a little exhausted, but also completely inspired by how much we’ve accomplished and how much more there is to do.

For more news on cancer updates, research and education, don’t forget to subscribe to CURE®’s newsletters here.