Maurice Slevin
Dr. Maurice Slevin is a U.K.-based medical doctor. He was the co-founder and longtime chair of Cancerbackup[1][2], a U.K. cancer charity and a founding partner and board member of Leaders in Oncology Care (formerly London Oncology Clinic).
Dr. Slevin spent the bulk of his career in medicine as an oncology consultant with the National Health Service, working at St. Bartholomew’s and Homerton Hospitals. He also ran a clinical pharmacology laboratory in London that investigated chemotherapeutic treatments. He also researched the psychosocial dimensions of cancer care.
Dr. Slevin is the editor of three medical books and has written two books for cancer patients. He has authored or co-authored more than 150 peer reviewed publications, 11 editorials, and numerous book chapters. His h-index is 56, per Google Scholar[3].
Contents
Education and background
Dr. Slevin received his MBchB from the University of Cape Town (South Africa) in 1973. From 1974 to 1977, he completed his internal medicine registrar sequence at Groot-Schuur Hospitalin Cape Town.
Dr. Slevin relocated to the United Kingdom to pursue an MRCP postgraduate degree (earned in 1978) and his Specialist Accreditation in Medical Oncology in 1982. He completed his oncology registrar training at St. Bartholomew’s and Homerton Hospitals in London.
He carried out a research doctorate in clinical pharmacology and was awarded an MD from the University of Cape Town, graduating in 1984.
Career
After completing his doctorate in medical oncology, Dr. Slevin worked as a consultant medical oncologist for the National Health Service for more than 25 years. He was a consultant in the solid tumor service at St. Bartholomew’s and Homerton Hospitals, specializing in breast, ovarian, lung and gastrointestinal cancers.
While with NHS, Dr. Slevin earned his Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians of London (FRCP) designation (1989).
Dr. Slevin co-founded Leaders in Oncology Care (LOC) in 2005. Initially private cancer clinic with a single location in London, the practice grew in the subsequent years to comprise seven practice locations with more than 70 oncology consultants on staff. LOC is now majority-owned by Healthcare Corporate America (HCA); Dr. Slevin has remained a member of the management board.
Cancer research
While with the NHS, Dr. Slevin founded and oversaw a clinical pharmacology laboratory investigating schedule dependency in chemotherapy for small-cell lung cancer[4]. Significant international practice changes resulted from his work.
Dr. Slevin also conducted stage 2 and 3 clinical trials to explore the clinical pharmacology of cytosine arabinoside and etoposide[5]. He published early research on morphine’s major active metabolites. He conducted psychosocial research around coping mechanisms in post-diagnosis cancer patients[6]. Finally, he supervised nine clinical pharmacology doctoral candidates while with the NHS.
Charitable activities and advocacy
Dr. Slevin co-founded a cancer charity called Cancerbackup in 1985 and served as chairman of its board through 2008, when the organization merged with Macmillan Cancer Care. His tenure saw the creation of a free cancer information network and later the development of the world’s second most popular cancer information website.
Separately, Dr. Slevin served from 1995 to 2000 as a trustee of Cancer Research Campaign (CRC), a major U.K. funder. He also chaired CRC’s education and psychosocial committee.
In the early 2000s, Dr. Slevin emerged as a critic of NHS management. He published a series of editorials[7][8][9] and that there were almost as many NHS managers as there were nurses, a claim that was slammed by the NHS federation[10] arguing that top-heavy administration and mismanagement were harming the service. He co-founded Doctors for Reform[11], an advocacy organization that proposed a social insurance funding model for the NHS.
References
- ↑ (in en) BACUP--the first two years: evaluation of a national cancer information service, 1988-09-10, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3140928/, retrieved 2021-11-26
- ↑ (in en) Cancerbackup: A brief history, https://www.macmillan.org.uk/documents/aboutus/whoweare/history/part4timeline.pdf, retrieved 2021-11-26
- ↑ (in en) Maurice Slevin on Google Scholar, https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=jf_0bHgAAAAJ, retrieved 2021-11-26
- ↑ (in en) A randomized trial to evaluate the effect of schedule on the activity of etoposide in small-cell lung cancer, 1989-09-07, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2549204/, retrieved 2021-11-26
- ↑ (in en) Effect of dose and schedule on pharmacokinetics of high-dose cytosine arabinoside in plasma and cerebrospinal fluid, 1983-09-01, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6583325/, retrieved 2021-11-26
- ↑ (in en) Attitudes to chemotherapy: comparing views of patients with cancer with those of doctors, nurses, and general public, 1990-06-02, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2379006/, retrieved 2021-11-26
- ↑ (in en) NHS could implode say doctors, 2003-02-03, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2720143.stm, retrieved 2021-11-26
- ↑ (in en) NHS on brink of implosion, claims leading specialist, 2003-02-03, https://www.theguardian.com/society/2003/feb/04/NHS.politics, retrieved 2021-11-26
- ↑ (in en) NHS is crushed by red tape, consultants say, 2003-02-04, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/3307639/NHS-is-crushed-by-red-tape-say-consultants.html, retrieved 2021-11-26
- ↑ (in en) Managers fight back over consultants claims, 2003-02-06, https://www.publicfinance.co.uk/news/2003/02/managers-fight-back-over-consultants-claims, retrieved 2021-11-26
- ↑ (in en) Doctors for Reform, https://powerbase.info/index.php/Doctors_for_Reform, retrieved 2021-11-26
