Oncologist to Speak at Westport Rotary Club

Dr. Richard C. Frank, a hematologist/oncologist and Director of Cancer Research at the Whittingham Cancer Center at Norwalk Hospital, will speak at the Westport Rotary Club Nov. 17 at noon at the Inn at Longshore.  His topic will be "Cancer:  Essential Knowledge for the Savvy Patient."   

Frank also serves as Medical Director of the Mid-Fairfield Hospice in Wilton. He is the author of the book, Fighting Cancer with Knowledge and Hope: A Guide for Patients, Families and Health Care Providers (Yale University Press, 2009).

Prior to joining Norwalk Hospital in 2000, Frank was an Attending Physician at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in the Division of Hematologic Oncology and was the recipient of a National Institutes of Health Physician-Scientist grant for research on the genetic basis of leukemia.  He is a graduate of Harvard College and the State University of New York at Stony Brook School of Medicine, from which he received an MD with Distinction in Research.  He served his internal medicine residency at the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, NYC and Hematology/Oncology Fellowship at MSKCC. 

In 2005, Frank was awarded the Humanitarian Award by the Leukemia-Lymphoma Society of Fairfield County for his commitment to patient care and education. In 2007, he was one of three physicians honored nationwide with the David King Community Clinical Scientist Award from the Association of Community Cancer Centers. He has been repeatedly selected by his peers as one of Connecticut’s “Top Doctors” in surveys published in Connecticut Magazine.  Frank is the author of numerous medical and scientific articles and lectures frequently to the public on lymphoma and myeloma, new cancer therapies and the importance of cancer clinical trials.

In his spare time, he plays tenor saxophone in the popular, (almost) all-physician Rock and Roll band DNR (www.dnrrocks.com).