Julia H. Rowland, member of the National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship Board of Directors and former director of NCI’s Office of Cancer Survivorship, and Thomas J. Smith, director of palliative medicine for Johns Hopkins Medicine, received the 2020 Ellen L. Stovall Award for Innovation in Patient-Centered Cancer Care, presented by The National Coalition for Cancer Survivorship.
Rowland and Smith received the award Nov. 18 at the NCCS virtual awards reception.
The award is named for former NCCS CEO Ellen Stovall, who died in 2016 due to long-term complications from three bouts of cancer.
Rowland is a long-time clinician, researcher, and teacher in the area of psychosocial aspects of cancer. She has worked with and conducted competitively funded research among both pediatric and adult cancer survivors and published broadly in psycho-oncology.
She was recruited to NCI to become the first, full-time director of the Office of Cancer Survivorship. After 18 years in this role, Rowland retired from service at the NCI in September 2017 and assumed the role of senior strategic advisor at Smith Center for Healing and the Arts, a small non-profit organization that provides integrative support services to cancer patients and their families.
Smith is a professor of oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Harry J. Duffey Family Professor of Palliative Care.
He is a medical oncologist and a palliative care specialist with a lifelong interest in better symptom management, communication, and improving access to high quality affordable care.
Smith began Johns Hopkins’ hospital-wide palliative care consult service as well as an inpatient unit. He is also a prostate cancer survivor, experiencing first-hand surgery, recurrence, salvage radiation therapy and androgen deprivation therapy with many significant side effects.
Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) presented the award to her constituent, Julia H. Rowland, and Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) presented the award to his constituent, Thomas J. Smith.
