Lois Ramondetta, MD, is a board certified gynecologic oncologist now beginning her tenth year at University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. She completed an obstetrics and gynecology residency at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1997 and specialized in gynecologic oncology at University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Ramondetta holds a full time Associate Professor position in the Department of Gynecologic Oncology at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and is the Director of the Division of Gynecologic Oncology at a small general hospital in Houston. She co-chairs the County Hospital District Cancer Committee and run a number of clinical-therapeutic trials for endometrial and cervical cancer. However, she spends the majority of her time in direct patient care. She sees patients both at the county hospital as well as at MD Anderson.

Guest Blogger Lois Ramondetta--

I love what I do. Working with women who have gynecologic malignancies is challenging to me in a variety of ways. I find it rewarding academically, emotionally, personally and spiritually. I also enjoy working at MD Anderson where I am very much surrounded by people working from all avenues in order to "make cancer history." Fortunately, I also have the privilege of working at a smaller county hospital where there is a very strong community feel among the care givers in my division. I believe the MD Anderson effort at this county institution is a tremendous benefit to the community and is also extremely personally rewarding.

During my fellowship I began to notice the very different ways physicians and patients responded to and coped with terminal diagnoses-and even noticed the different ways I responded. I developed a survey designed to explore the attitudes of gynecologic oncology physicians towards end-of-life situations and factors influencing these approaches. The results were published in the International Journal of Gynecological Cancer (2004 Jul-Aug;14(4):580-8). In 1998 I met Deborah Sills, Ph.D. Collaborating with her, we continued to explore the wide variety of psychological/spiritual responses to the diagnosis of cancer and end of life situations both from the caregiver's view point and the patient's view point, and together we wrote a review article on "Spirituality in Gynecologic Oncology."

I have tried to stay involved with organizations that recognize the importance of humanities in medicine including the Humanity Department at University of Texas Medical School in Houston and have served on a number of Clinical Bioethics Committees. I have also served on the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology Ethics Committee and currently serve on the American Society of Clinical Oncologists Ethics Committee. I presently run a number of trials looking at changes in spirituality and coping over time in women with ovarian cancer. Doing this kind of work allows me to reflect on the importance of existential growth in cancer care, knowing that it is sometimes easy to lose the "big" picture while working to eliminate the tumor.

Many have tried to define spirituality and religion in the context of medical care. I have always felt the definitions are not quite right—that there is something missing. For care-givers and patients, exploring the connection between the healing of the body and the healing of the spirit recognizes the comprehensive character of cancer treatment, and furthers the understanding that both care-givers and patients share knowledge that what patients lose in their battle with cancer is more than simply a medical life. The fact that this exploration is also deeply personal and frightening and that these feelings have not been identified as a reason for some hesitancy towards the subject, surprises me. Knowing Deborah Sills, talking with her-helped me greatly to understand exactly what patients might be feeling. The conversation that continued through the years of knowing each other was rewarding to both of us in ways we couldn't have imagined.

BackStory:  Lois Ramondetta, M.D. and Deborah Rose Sills recently published their collaborative book--The Light Within: The Extraordinary Friendship of a Doctor and Patient Brought Together by Cancer.(William Morrow 5/08), chronicling their unusual friendship.  This memoir explores the devastating effects of cancer through the intimate and complex relationship that develops between a doctor and a patient. The two women met in 1998, Dr. Ramondetta was a young gynecologic oncologist at M.D. Anderson and Deborah Rose Sills, a religion professor at the California Lutheran University was undergoing treatment for stage III ovarian cancer.  Becoming close friends, they saw and understood better what the other felt and thought during the battle to beat the cancer.  Deborah Rose Sills, Ph.D. passed on in 2006, leaving behind a husband and two children.

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