Welcome to the second edition of many SAAOG member spotlights. Every month we highlight a different SAAOG member who is doing exciting things in the field of Obstetrics and Gynecology. This month we are excited to spotlight Guy Benrubi, MD. Dr. Benrubi is the current Secretary of SAAOG as well as the chair of ACOG District XII (Florida).
I am the current secretary of SAAOG. I am also the current ACOG District XII (Florida) Chair. At work I am currently the Emeritus Chair of the department of Obstetrics and Gynecology of the University of Florida College of Medicine-Jacksonville. In 2018, I completed 22 years as chair of the same department and 17 years as a Senior Associate Dean, first for Clinical Affairs and then for Faculty Affairs.
I have always defined myself as a physician who teaches young women and men to become competent, compassionate, and innovative physicians who take care of female patients. I consider that to be the most honorable profession in our society.
As a medical student this discipline was my first clinical rotation. My first impression was that this was one aspect of medicine that I wanted to avoid. But as I was trained in the early seventies, I became increasingly frustrated with the inability to make progress in treating chronic maladies. I also became disenchanted with the ethos and demeanor of surgical attendings at that time in my medical school. I further noticed that of all the house staff the obstetric and gynecology residents seemed the happiest. During my senior year I got excited about various aspects of the profession, be it oncology, assisted reproduction (only a dream at the time), and ameliorating obstetric complications, especially preeclampsia. During residency I had the life changing experience of being taught and mentored by Dr. Robert Nuss (who was honored by the SAAOG with a lifetime achievement award in 2018). Gyn oncology combined aspects of compassion, technical proficiency, and the idea of professional excellence, more than any other aspect of our specialty. I have never regretted the decision.
Over the years the society has continued to provide the elements which attracted me to it originally. The scientific programs are excellent, and I always learn at these meetings. The camaraderie aspects have not diminished. There have been multiple occasions for networking which led to multiple academic and scientific endeavors. Essentially the society has provided all the elements which I was hoping to encounter in a professional association.
Specifically in gyn oncology I believe we are at the cusp of being able to determine with more precision the molecular basis of individual malignancies is each specific patient. I am hoping that within my lifetime we will be able to prescribe targeted individualized therapy for malignancies which have bedeviled us for all of my medical career. Currently we treat oncologic as well as other diseases with a “carpet bombing” approach. I hope to see a much more prevalent use of “drone delivered’ attacks in so many conditions, be it those amenable to immunotherapy, chemotherapy, SERMS, anti-infectious agents, etc. My other pet peeve, is our current inability to have high penetrance of the HPV vaccine. We can essentially come close to eliminating at least six cancers, genital, oropharyngeal, gastro-intestinal, if we were to vaccinate our young people the way we inoculate them from mumps, measles, hepatitis, etc..
My hobbies are traveling, and reading, primarily non-fiction.
