- Officially announced at the Spanish Society of Medical Oncology’s (SEOM) General Assembly during its Annual virtual Congress, 18-22 October 2021, VHIO’s Enriqueta Felip has been appointed as President.
Having served as SEOM’s Vice-President throughout its previous two-year term of governance (2019-2021), under the championship of immediate Past-President Álvaro Rodríguez-Lescure, Head of the Medical Oncology Service, General University Hospital of Elche (Alicante, Spain), VHIO’s Enriqueta Felip now takes the reins as SEOM’s new President (2021-2023).
“Serving alongside SEOM’s Board of Directors, expert committees, working groups and supporters, I am dedicated to responding to the rapidly changing needs of each and every one of our members, everywhere. We will also work together to further establish SEOM as a leading professional society in medical oncology,” said Enriqueta Felip, Principal Investigator of VHIO’s Thoracic Tumors & Head and Neck Cancer Group.
“These efforts will all firmly focus on those who matter most; our cherished patients. In the current era of precision medicine, our patients must continue to be at the very center of our multidisciplinary oncology teams and everything we do,” added Enriqueta Felip, who is also Head of the Thoracic Cancer Unit at the Vall d’Hebron University Hospital’s (HUVH) Medical Oncology Department, which is led by VHIO’s Director, Josep Tabernero.
More specifically, Enriqueta Felip will spearhead the Board’s actions and initiatives aimed at achieving equitable patient access to genetic counseling, disease prevention and screening programs, molecular diagnostics, as well as more effective, personalized cancer medicines, treatment strategies, and optimal palliative care.
She continued, “We will promote the necessary multidisciplinary approach to the diagnosis and treatment of disease, as well as forge and nurture important alliances with other professional societies, including the European Society for Medical Oncology, to both support and grow our profession. We will also seek to further strengthen SEOM’s presence on the international oncology stage.”
Other priority areas, led in tandem by Enriqueta Felip and SEOM’s newly appointed Vice-President, César Rodríguez, a Medical Oncologist at the Salamanca University Hospital, include: potentiating direct contact with members; promoting the development of academic careers of oncology professionals of all ages; supporting members across all geographic areas, regardless of the model and resources of the respective hospitals where they work; and spurring cancer research of excellence by fortifying SEOM’s prestigious Awards and Scholarship Program.
Also officially announced during its General Assembly at this week’s 2021 virtual Congress, César Serrano, Principal Investigator of VHIO’s Sarcoma Translational Research Group and a Medical Oncologist at Vall d’Hebron’s Medical Oncology Department, joins SEOM’s newly formed Board as member.
Enriqueta Felip’s presidency, along with César Serrano’s aforementioned appointment to the Board, are representative of HUVH’s Medical Oncology Department and VHIO’s longstanding commitment to this professional society which counts a membership of some 1,700 oncologists. Also illustrative of Vall d’Hebron’s support for SEOM, Elena Élez, Medical Oncologist and a Clinical Investigator of VHIO’s Gastrointestinal & Endocrine Tumors Group, coordinates the +MIR SEOM Residents and Young Oncologists Committee which is devoted to identifying and responding to the needs of young oncologists in Spain.
