It is with great pleasure that we announce the appointment of Dr. Wilson H. Miller, Jr. as the new Clinical Lead for the Rossy Cancer Network (RCN) effective September 1, 2014. As the Clinical Lead, Dr. Miller is a member of the RCN Executive Committee, which also includes the leadership of St. Mary’s Hospital Center, the Jewish General Hospital and the McGill University Health Centre oncology departments as well as the Faculty of Medicine’s Department of Oncology.
He will focus on continuing the development and implementation of common standards across the RCN hospitals, while implementing priority projects. Chief among these will be the establishment of tumour site groups: cross-institutional working groups based on types of cancer, which will collaborate to develop world-class comprehensive cancer care across the McGill hospitals.
The transition of Dr. Wilson Miller to his new role has been facilitated by the outstanding work done by his predecessor, Dr. Jaroslav Prchal, who acted in an interim capacity since March 2014. As Chief of Oncology at St. Mary’s Hospital Center, Dr. Prchal remains as one of the key members of the RCN Executive Committee. We would like to take this opportunity to thank Dr. Prchal for his leadership and dedication to the RCN.
Dr. Miller obtained his PhD in cell biology from the Rockefeller University, and an MD from Cornell University. He completed a fellowship in medical oncology at New York’s Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC), and held faculty appointments in the Department of Medicine at Cornell, as well as at MSKCC. He joined McGill as an Associate Professor jointly in Oncology and Medicine in 1993 and was named James McGill Professor in 2004, the latter being a distinction reserved for the top 10% of senior researchers at McGill.
His clinical focus is on melanoma, breast and renal cancer, and in championing clinical trials at the JGH and at McGill, where he serves as Director of the Phase I Clinical Research Unit. His basic science focus is on investigating the molecular mechanisms underlying hematologic cancer, melanoma and breast cancer, with a focus on the development of novel targeted therapies. He sits on peer review panels for the National Institutes of Health (US), the Canadian Institute of Health Research, the Ontario Cancer Research Network, and the Leukemia Lymphoma Society. He has served as Associate Editor for two oncology journals, Cancer Research and Leukemia, and has published over 180 papers in leading medical journals.
As Clinical Lead, Dr. Miller also takes on the position of Associate Chair for Clinical Affairs in the Department of Oncology, and as such will chair the oncology-related activities for the McGill Réseau universitaire intégré de santé, while assisting the Chair of the Department of Oncology in aligning the missions and objectives of the university department and the RCN member hospitals.
Please join us in wishing a warm congratulations and much success to Dr. Miller in his new RCN leadership role.
Sincerely,
Vice-Principal (Health Affairs)
Dean of the Faculty of Medicine
McGill University
October 28, 2014