Rewriting the Rules for a Better Future of Cancer Care

For Edward S. Kim, MD, much of his life revolved around rewriting the rules both professionally and personally. Those in the oncology space might know him as the man working tirelessly to improve clinical trial access or leading several practice-changing research studies, including the BATTLE trial’s (NCT00409968) landmark research that laid the groundwork for the use of biomarkers to personalize lung cancer care. Others may recognize Kim from a viral TikTok post, as the dad who wore fun and themed outfits while attending a Taylor Swift concert with his daughter, Elyssa.

However, Kim was not always a social media star or a world-renowned clinician. Growing up, he had a completely different career path in mind. As the son of a finance professor and an artist growing up in the Midwest—first the upper peninsula of Michigan and then Indiana—Kim thought he would be an engineer who designed cars for a living. But then, when Kim was 14 years old, his younger brother, Donald, died of a heart condition at age 12.
“That really changed the whole trajectory of my passion and pursuit of my career,” Kim, physician-in-chief at City of Hope Orange County and vice physi- cian-in-chief at City of Hope National Medical Center in Irvine, California, said in an interview. “That was my motivating force, and [it] continues to fuel my motivation. Growing up in Terre Haute, Indiana, we didn’t have modern hospitals, and I saw people who didn’t get the type of health care they deserved.”

Kim also saw this firsthand with his father who had hypercholesterolemia. Although he maintained a healthy weight and diet and frequently exercised, he was constantly told to diet or work out; the high cholesterol was the result of a genetic condition. “Nobody bothered to look deeper into it to treat it. When I went to medical school...I reinforced my desire...to be able to provide health care to anyone anywhere, no matter what their background is or where they live,” Kim said.

Backed by a personal motivation to one day improve patient care, Kim attended the Honors Program in Medical Education at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, which is a 7-year medical program where students are enrolled both at Northwestern and the institution’s Feinberg School of Medicine. He then went on to do a clinical residency at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, before falling in love with cancer care during his medical oncology fellowship at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (MD Anderson), also in Houston.

In his first month as a fellow at MD Anderson, Kim was asked to write a review on the topic of lung cancer prevention in the next millennium. Nervous about the task but willing to jump into it, he diligently photo- copied more than 400 references from the library— this was before the internet era—and ran it by his wife, Florence, before submitting it to his mentors. He credits Florence with giving him his first boost of confidence in the cancer research space.

“Before I let any of my mentors read it, I had my wife read it. She’s a Harvard graduate—much smarter than me—and she really liked it,” Kim said. “I said, ‘Wow, it must be pretty good if she liked it, because she would probably be my harshest critic.’ That gave me a lot of confidence in what I was doing.... I really believe that helped me moving forward.”

That confidence, support, and hard work have paved the way for an exceptionally successful career. Now, Kim is the 2024 Giants of Cancer Care inductee for community outreach and education. Along with this title, he serves as the Construction Industries Alliance City of Hope Orange County Physician-in- Chief Chair, professor in the Department of Medical Oncology and Therapeutics Research, and system director of clinical trials at City of Hope.

A Focus on Improving Quality of Life

Although Kim said he never thought he’d be considered a “giant”—he chuckled when he said he stands 5-ft, 8-in tall—others were not so surprised he had earned this honor.

“He’s been an advocate in many different spaces and in a variety of organizations. He’s also been involved in expanding clinical trial access for patients with cancer. I’m not surprised he received this award, given how active he is. I’m not sure if he ever sleeps,” said Richard T. Lee, MD, the Cherng Family Director’s Chair of the Center of Integrative Oncology at City of Hope.

Lee and Kim first crossed paths at MD Anderson before Kim went on to City of Hope and recruited Lee in 2021. The 2 now collaborate on creating one of the largest integrative oncology programs in the country—an initiative for which Kim is the executive sponsor.

“Our vision is to change the standard of care for patients who are receiving treatment for cancer through more holistic approaches that are scien- tifically, rigorously studied through research,” Lee said. “Patients are often interested in seeking and utilizing these [integrative approaches] on their own but don’t get the guidance from a trained oncologist about what to do and what not to do. Unfortunately, oncologists don’t receive training on this, either. There’s a huge gap.”

Alleviating both the physical and emotional suffering for those undergoing cancer treatment was a driving force behind why Kim went into oncology in the first place. He reminisced on his days as a resident assigned to an oncology unit and vividly remembered an older woman with breast cancer who kept coming back to the hospital due to debilitating pain from bone metastases. Another woman, who was diagnosed with end-stage cancer, appreciated when Kim would sit down and talk with her during visits. He still thinks about the man in his 40s who came to the hospital believing he pulled a muscle in his shoulder at work but was eventually diagnosed with a rare sarcoma. The patient was in a complete state of disbelief and left the hospital without treatment. These memories point toward the human side of cancer.

“These experiences have stuck with me. They show [diversity in] age, gender, [and] race...each person has their own journey,” Kim said. “It was truly the patients who directed me through this field.”

A Fight for Diversity in Clinical Trials

Cancer doesn’t discriminate; it impacts everyone in some way as patients come from diverse backgrounds. Thus, Kim always believed that clinical trials leading to new cancer discoveries should also be diverse. However, that was not always—and sometimes still isn’t—the case.

“We are not using the correct playbook here,” Kim said. “We are unnecessarily excluding populations in clinical protocols that have 30-plus eligibility criteria, and it’s not needed. It excludes patients, and sometimes it could be considered downright discriminatory on which populations get excluded.”

Kim has been working with Friends of Cancer Research, the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and the FDA to reduce the number of eligibility criteria for cancer clinical trials, ultimately leading to study cohorts that more closely resemble real-world populations, he explained. Although there is still work to be done here, these efforts have led to some landmark changes.

For example, patients with HIV used to not be eligible for trials. However, with the advancements in HIV treatment, most patients with HIV have similar 5-year survival rates as those without HIV, according to Kim. Additionally, patients with cancer that has metastasized to the brain have traditionally been considered high-risk and therefore excluded from trials. “But many of our modern drugs cross the blood-brain barrier and actually treat these [patients],” Kim said. “We had to rewrite the rules on how to include them.”

Lee explained that Kim has also been working to expand access to clinical trials beyond City of Hope and other major cancer centers. “Not everyone can travel to an NCI-designated comprehensive cancer center. The future is going to be [examining] how we can ease that delivery process,” Kim said.

Lee echoed that sentiment. “We don’t just want clinical trials at the major cancer centers; we can offer them at our community [practices] and our network sites,” he said. “That is a paradigm shift for a lot of cancer centers.”

Oncology Drives an Appreciation for Life

Not only does Kim make waves in the field of oncology and clinical trials, but he also became an overnight viral sensation on TikTok after his daughter posted a video of the 2 of them dressed up to go to a Taylor Swift concert. Elyssa was wearing a sparkly black dress under a bright pink fuzzy coat, whereas Kim sported a black tracksuit and comfortable tennis shoes. Both completed their looks with sunglasses that added an extra air of coolness.

“My outfit was dictated by the comfort of my shoes. I said, ‘I’m wearing my black tennis sneakers because I know I’m going to be standing for 6 hours.’ And the black tracksuit fit well with [Swift’s] Reputation era,” Kim said.

Elyssa posted a TikTok that showed the father- daughter duo on the plane, then at the hotel, and then going to Taylor Swift’s opening concert of the Eras Tour in Glendale, Arizona. By the next day, the video had nearly 1 million views and they were scheduling interviews for TODAY and On Air With Ryan Seacrest.

Aside from attending concerts with his daughter, Kim and his son Alex share a love for food and can be caught catching up on cooking shows, such as episodes of Hell’s Kitchen, Next Level Chef, and Master- Chef, in their downtime.

Kim mentioned that his career in cancer care helps put these family memories into focus and realize the importance of togetherness and having fun. “This field—in oncology [and] all of medicine—should make us appreciate that life is fragile. In cancer care, we see patients who are battling mortality every day. It’s a serious field, and we do a lot of hard work, but you have to step back and look around to see what’s really valuable,” Kim said.

More to Do and a Legacy to Come

Be it with his family or with other clinicians and patients, Kim said he hopes his legacy focuses on the fact that he helps others grow. “I try to create opportunities for other people so they can grow and excel. I take a lot of pride in that,” he said. “I hope I can pass as much knowledge and advice to my kids and guide them so they can be successful in what- ever they pursue. I’d be very content with that; I don’t need anything else. As leaders, we have to use our positions to help other people [grow].”

But for now, there is still more work to be done in both improving and personalizing oncologic care and ensuring the whole patient—regardless of their background—is taken into account when undergoing cancer treatment.

“We need to be cognizant of each individual patient, not just by what their disease dictates but their culture and what’s important to them, including holistic care. We still have problems with language barriers and communicating our different medical forms into languages. I hope [artificial intelligence] takes us in that direction, where we don’t have to worry about what language someone speaks or reads. Technology should bridge that gap with the consumer, the patients, the public, and the technical aspects of medicine,” Kim said.

Lee is optimistic that Kim will be a driving force in achieving these goals. “He just has a great sense of the field—from research to clinical care to education— because he’s just a great person,” he said.