Who am I and why am I here?

My name is David Loeb, and I’m a pediatric oncologist.

Whenever I say that, I’m reminded of how people introduce themselves at AA meetings. Unlike being an alcoholic, being a pediatric oncologist is not a problem, really. You might think so from the looks I get when I meet someone and tell them what I do for a living. “You do what?” “That must be so hard!” “How can you do that every day?”

I’ll tell you… I can’t imagine doing anything else with my life. I have a fabulous job. I have a lab, where we study cancer at the molecular level and are trying to understand how good cells go bad and do bad things to kids. I see patients, too, and they provide me with the inspiration to go back and work harder in the lab to find new ways to treat them.

I love kids. They tolerate so much while we treat them. And yet, no matter how miserable we make them, all they want to do is be kids – to run and jump and play. It energizes me to walk into clinic and feel the joy emanating from the kids.

How did I get to where I am? Well, I studied biology in college and then went to medical school at Columbia University in New York. I earned my PhD at the same time, and after graduation I moved to Baltimore to do a residency in pediatrics at Johns Hopkins. I haven’t left. After all, how can you leave America's #1 hospital?

This is my 7th year on the faculty as a pediatric oncologist. Last October I was appointed the Director of the Johns Hopkins Sarcoma Center. Sarcomas are rare tumors of the bone, muscle, fat, and other connective tissue (connective tissue is what holds our bodies together). Because they are rare, they are not mentioned often in the newspaper, there is not enough research funded for sarcomas, and because of this much less is known about how best to treat these awful diseases. Patients and their families often feel alone when they get a cancer diagnosis, and it’s even worse when it’s a kind of cancer they’ve never even heard of.

Why, at this point, am I starting a blog? My goal with this blog is to provide support and information for patients with cancer and their loved ones. I’ll tell stories about my patients… mostly good, but not always. I’ll highlight news related to cancer research, including reports of new drugs and new treatments. I’ll discuss new clinical trials. And most importantly, I hope get to know the the people who are reading my blog - and that we will learn from each other.