In her new position, within the Research Institute’s Center for Clinical Investigations, Dr. Goetz will develop protocols emphasizing disease prevention for all five of the Institute’s research divisions: Oncology, Cardiovascular, Neuroscience, Bariatric/GI, and Multispecialty, which includes the Institute’s newest research efforts. These protocols will also involve, enhance and complement the practices and interests of physicians who are part of HonorHealth’s network of hospitals and community clinics.
Having directed residency programs for newly minted med school graduates at the University of California, San Francisco, and at Scripps Clinic in La Jolla, Dr. Goetz hopes to foster strong educational and clinical bonds with students at Arizona State University’s new School of Medicine and Advanced Medical Engineering, developing disease prevention perspectives that might help guide a whole new generation of physician engineers.
Dr. Goetz will work closely with the Institute’s new Center for Translational Science, and especially with Nicholas J. Schork, Ph.D., an international authority on human longevity and health maintenance, who last week was named the Institute’s Research Director of Longevity, Prevention and Interception.
For more than a decade, Dr. Goetz and Dr. Schork — partners professionally and personally — have attempted to create preventive medicine programs, yielding mixed results, in part, because there is less money to be made in keeping people healthy, as opposed to practicing what they call “illness care,” treating patients after they have already developed significant symptoms.
With Dr. Goetz focused on patients in the clinic, and Dr. Schork focused on identifying and developing advanced technologies for treating and preventing diseases, she said, “We’re at an intersection where we can both help each other build this joint program; we have a unique opportunity to test innovations that the translational medicine group develops and ultimately use them in clinical settings for patients.”
HonorHealth’s dedication to prevention
“What we’ve realized, talking with HonorHealth Research Institute for the past year, is that there really is the interest, opportunity, resources and infrastructure to implement true preventive medicine strategies in a way that will be transformative and meaningful for patients,” Dr. Goetz said. “At HonorHealth Research Institute, where they already marry research to clinical practice, we found a philosophy we hadn’t experienced in other places. The HonorHealth mission clearly meshed with what we want to do in focusing on prevention, longevity and healthspan.”
Healthspan reflects years actively engaged in life, as opposed to lifespan, which might include years, even decades, lingering in a retirement home.
Their focus, Dr. Goetz said, will be on improving treatment effectiveness, reducing side effects, and encouraging patients to feel that their unique differences are going to be understood, and that those differences are actually going to motivate tailored approaches to improve their outcomes — precision medicine.
“It’s not just treating people like a number,” she said, “it’s actually taking the time to understand all aspects of an individual’s health; a whole body approach.”
HonorHealth leadership encouraging
Mark Slater, Ph.D., CEO of the Research Institute, and Vice President of Research for HonorHealth, said the additions of Dr. Schork and Dr. Goetz, through their many and varied experiences, represent the Institute’s goals of strengthening and expanding collaborations.
“These are transformative recruits. They are people at the top of their field in science and medicine, respectively, and they're bringing a new energy and approach. They're bringing their networks to facilitate our collaborations with ASU, across the HonorHealth system, and with physicians and investigators both locally and across the globe.”
Michael Gordon, M.D., FASCO, Chief Medical Officer of the Research Institute, agreed, saying: “Nik and Laura are here to accelerate transformative care by taking advantage of new advances; to ensure that we can all live our best lives for as long as possible.”
“So much of medicine is directed toward treating the disease after it has already started to harm patients. But what if you could identify what we call ‘pre-disease!’ ” said Dr. Gordon, using the example of finding a genomic biomarker that could identify blood clots and even break them up in the bloodstream before they could cause a stroke.
Sunil Sharma, M.D., MBA, FACP, Director of the Institute’s Center for Translational Science, said, “I am so looking forward to the guidance and sensitivity to patients’ needs that Dr. Goetz will bring to our enterprises. I am very enthusiastic about how she will contribute to precision medicine and our goal of creating new methods of early disease detection, and even disease interception, stopping the disease before debilitating symptoms can even develop.”
Dr. Schork said his work with Dr. Goetz and the rest of the HonorHealth teams will help improve the use and power of statistics to shorten timelines for determining if new treatments and methods work, and to enhance the relevance of translational science by linking insights to patient outcomes.
“We think this preventive approach for individual patients has a tremendous advantage. Instead of doing population-based clinical trials, where you’re just looking at average responses, we’re actually looking at individual living human beings and whether they’re having an actual health benefit using these new technologies.”
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About the HonorHealth Research Institute
HonorHealth Research Institute is an international destination that is at the forefront of providing patients with a better quality of life through its clinical trials and innovative treatment options. Headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, the institute’s team of physicians and researchers collaborate with experts from across the nation to offer life-changing therapies, drugs and devices. At HonorHealth Research Institute, patients have access to tomorrow’s health innovations, today. Learn more at: HonorHealth.com/research.
For more about HonorHealth Research Institute clinical trials: call 833-354-6667; or email clinicaltrials@HonorHealth.com.
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