RICHMOND — Kim Rhoads, M.D., M.S., MPH has been named associate director of community outreach and engagement at VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center. She will also serve as a professor of colorectal surgery in the VCU School of Medicine. Rhoads most recently served as the associate director for community outreach and engagement at the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center at University of California San Francisco.
“I am extremely excited to bring what I have learned from countless community partners, university staff and academic colleagues over the past 15 years about the science of community engagement, to VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center,” Rhoads said. “Although I have lived in California for most of my life, I was born, and my family still lives, in the Hampton Roads area. My Aunt Jeannette’s experience with breast cancer treatment and her subsequent passing in 1993 animates my commitment to eliminating cancer disparities through community-engaged approaches to innovate and improve the quality of cancer care delivery in underserved populations. Massey is uniquely positioned to support these efforts with its powerful leadership in Drs. Winn and Baskin, and the ‘One Team, One Fight’ philosophy, and I am honored to join the team.”
Rhoads brings significant expertise to the challenge of optimizing cancer outcomes for everyone. Her formal training and scholarly work crosses the full cancer continuum from basic science (endothelial cell regulation and angiogenesis), exposures and cancer risk reduction, to clinical care as a colorectal surgeon. She has translated her knowledge of systems through health services research to inform health policy. Before joining the faculty at UCSF, Rhoads founded the community outreach and engagement program for the Stanford Cancer Institute…