SGO elects 2014-15 president

Richard R. Barakat, MD, FACS, deputy physician-in-chief for Memorial Sloan Kettering Regional Care Network and Alliances in New York, has been elected president of the Society of Gynecologic Oncology and president of the Foundation for Gynecologic Oncology.

Barakat, chief of the Gynecology Service and the Ronald O. Perelman chair in gynecologic surgery at Memorial Sloan Kettering, said he is encouraged by SGO’s growth in membership and looks forward to leading the society and foundation over the next year.

“I hope to increase the profile of the society nationally as well as internationally to help spread the society’s mission of ensuring the highest quality of care for women with gynecologic cancer throughout the world,” Barakat said in a press release. “With more than 1,800 members now, we are poised to make great strides in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of this disease.”

Barakat’s primary areas of surgical expertise are advanced robotic and laparoscopic surgery for uterine cancer and radical procedures for debulking ovarian cancer. He also is involved in clinical research to assess the best treatments for patients with gynecologic cancers, including studies that have helped demonstrate the benefit of intraperitoneal therapy for patients with advanced ovarian cancer.

At Memorial Sloan Kettering, Barakat was the lead investigator on several studies, including a study to compare the benefits of laparoscopic vs. standard surgery for patients with endometrial cancer.

On a national level, Barakat was the vice chairman of the Cancer Prevention Committee of the Gynecologic Oncology Group and still is actively involved with cancer prevention studies on that committee. He is the lead investigator on a federally funded national trial to evaluate the risk factors for the development of lymphedema following radical surgery for gynecologic cancer. He also is an examiner for the American Board of Obstetrics and Gynecology.