‘I always give credit to my father’

We are often, in large part, products of those who surround us in life. Our parents, our siblings, teachers, friends and many others help to mold the ever-evolving sculpture called “me.”  For Eugene Ahn, MD, the influence and inspiration came from many directions. Among them:

• The “brassy” and beloved high school debate coach who help him articulate his thoughts and break through social anxieties
• A friend and colleague who, he says, “set my path in stone” as a doctor and researcher
• Uncle Bill, the dear neighbor whose cancer battle exposed him to the ravages of the disease
• And foremost, a caring and loving physician who happened to be his father.

“I always give credit to my father for having put me on the right track of being a good physician,” says Dr. Ahn, a Medical Oncologist at City of Hope Chicago. “He really gave me this drive to find a better solution for cancer treatment because he shared the losses that he had and how tough that was for him. For him, there was always this underlying message: ‘The more we focus on this and those who are suffering from cancer, the more we will learn how to better treat this disease.’”

‘A powerful message to me’

Born in Miami to Korean immigrants, Dr. Ahn learned about the challenges of being a physician at a young age during conversations around the dinner table. His parents met in Pittsburgh, where Dr. Ahn’s father, Dr. Yeon S. Ahn, was doing his oncology fellowship training. His mother Won Ahn, studied to be a pharmacist, but eventually became a stay-at-home mom and part-time real estate agent. They moved to Miami, where the elder Dr. Ahn practiced as an oncologist and hematologist and served as professor at the University of Miami (UM) for decades. Soon, the senior Dr. Ahn’s cases became a family affair, with young Eugene absorbing the details.

“When he came home for dinner, he often would share challenging situations, or stories, or some discoveries that he had at work,” Dr. Ahn says. “It was all part of the day-to-day flow of our family.

“I was always fascinated with the challenges he was talking about. He would say, ‘You know, we have cancer, and it's a very tough diagnosis to treat. But we're getting better, and with time, it's going to be an increasingly rewarding field.’ The puzzle that is cancer was definitely something that was in my mind at a very young age.”

Eventually, Dr. Ahn was allowed to “tag along” with his dad during hospital visits. He saw firsthand the compassion and honesty his father shared with his patients. And his father instilled in him the single-most important component in any doctor-patient relationship: trust.

“I remember when he took me over to the clinics to see his practice,” Dr. Ahn says. “He would tell me as the first teaching point that, ‘You're nothing to your patient if you don't have their trust.’ And so that was a powerful message to me. But never really talked about in medical school”

Dr. Ahn’s parents are now retired and live near family in Philadelphia. Dr. Yeon S. Ahn left a legacy as a physician who offered compassionate care to his patients. Writes one former patient on the website healthgrades.com: “Dr. Ahn is a caring, compassionate, courteous physician that truly combines the excellent qualities of intelligence, medical knowledge and empathy that a patient needs from their medical doctor but so seldom finds.”

‘It became personal’

Among the earliest patients the younger Dr. Ahn remembers visiting as a child was a man known to him as “Uncle Bill,” a next-door neighbor and close friend to the family (he was affectionally called “uncle” even though he was not a blood relative). Uncle Bill was a blonde, blue-eyed U.S. military veteran who served in Korea and married a Korean woman. His wife’s Korean ethnicity and participation in the local Korean church, brought them all together like an extended family.

When Uncle Bill was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, his health declined rapidly, causing a stunning transformation in his physical appearance. It left an indelible impression on the young physician-to-be.

“That was the first time I ever saw someone dealing with cancer who I knew,” he recalls. “And it was pretty… memorable. It was only about maybe two months after we had heard about the diagnosis, and we came there to see him when he was hospitalized. And just seeing him suddenly looking so thin and in pain, and looking almost unrecognizable to a young child’s eyes. That wasn’t the Uncle Bill we knew. The only thing we knew to do, my sister and I when we saw him, was to cry and hug him. Because we didn't have any words for what we were processing.”

For young Eugene Ahn, the concept of cancer moved beyond the challenging cases his family discussed at the dinner table.

“It became personal at that point,” he says. “It was no longer just an intellectual exercise. It just put it all together that this puzzle my dad's been talking about every dinnertime became so important. There's great suffering created by it. And the more we understand it, the less suffering we'll see.”