Director, Cancer Department 1978–1983
Charles R. Smart, MD, FACS, served as the Assistant Director of the Cancer Department of the American College of Surgeons from 1978 through June 1983.
Born in Ogden, UT, he was raised on sheep ranches in Wyoming and California where he developed a strong work ethic and love for adventure and the outdoors. He enlisted in the Army at age 17 where he served during World War II followed by a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He attended the University of Utah and received his medical degree from Temple University. While in medical school he married Dorotha, and they had six children and 26 grandchildren. Following medical school, he interned at Los Angeles County Hospital followed by a five-year surgical residency at the University of Pennsylvania. He completed a fellowship in surgical oncology at UCLA Medical Center and later returned to Salt Lake City and accepted a position with the University of Utah Hospital and in 1975 became the chief of surgery at LDS Hospital for 10 years. Dr. Smart became a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons in 1966 and assumed his role as Assistant Director of the Cancer Department in 1978. In this role, Dr. Smart commuted to Chicago on a regular basis throughout his 5-year tenure and was known to spend nights in the Nickerson Mansion, a property formerly owned by the American College of Surgeons that housed several of the ACS offices.
During his tenure as Assistant Director of the Cancer Department, the number of approved hospital cancer programs grew from 840 to 1,000. In 1980, the 840 approved hospital cancer programs treated 398,000 new cases and represented 14 percent of hospitals taking care of 52 percent of newly diagnosed cancer patients. Hospital cancer programs were using the following manuals published in 1974 to manage their hospital cancer programs: the Cancer Program Manual, the Cancer Registry Manual, and the Patient with Cancer Guidelines for Follow-up published in 1976. In 1978, the Field Staff included four full-time surveyors and four cancer program consultants who completed 341 surveys and 207 consults. Just prior to the start of Dr. Smart’s tenure the Commission on Cancer’s Cancer Care and Research Committee began conducting patient care audits, or patterns of care studies to help hospital cancer programs assess the quality of their cancer care. These paper-based voluntary national studies had been conducted on cancers of the liver, colon, breast, and rectum, and prostate was underway in 1978. Dr. Smart was a proponent of technology and led the way for computerization of Cancer Department operations and led the process to computerize the survey form data “for increased accuracy and improved efficiency for staff and members of the Commission on Cancer.”
Dr. Smart was committed in the 1980s to providing computer assistance to hospital cancer programs. At that time, only 25 percent of approved hospitals utilized a computer in their registry operations. Dr. Smart’s goal was to develop and provide a mini-computer package to hospital cancer programs to help them more efficiently manage their cancer program data that would allow for these data to be merged at the regional and national levels. He wanted to develop this system to be compatible with the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results Program of the National Cancer Institute. It also interesting to note, that during Dr. Smart’s tenure, the Cancer Department was a jointly funded effort by the American College of Surgeons, the American Cancer Society, and the National Cancer Institute.
Following his role with the College, Dr. Smart moved to Washington, DC, where he became chief of the Early Detection Branch of the National Cancer Institute, a department he helped create. After his official retirement in 1999, Dr. Smart and his wife served an 18-month LDS mission in Moscow, Russia.
Among his numerous accomplishments, Dr. Smart established the Utah Cancer Registry that captured reports on every diagnosed case of cancer in the state. He also served as president of the Utah Chapter of the American College of Surgeons, was a branch chief at the National Cancer Institute, and chaired the American Cancer Society’s Breast Cancer Task Force.
He received numerous awards and authored more than 100 scientific publications, but his goal was not to be famous or rich, but to use all of his strength and ability to help others.
Written by Connie Bura