is an icon in the world of surgical oncology excelling as a mentor, master surgeon, researcher, and leader. It is a fitting tribute to Dr. Ketcham that our guest editor has assembled the leaders in one of the most exciting and evolving discoveries of today using radio guided surgery to map and/or resect metastases, the biology of which was a passion and a focus of his career.
His academic career began leading the world's most prestigious surgical research Institute, the NCI surgery branch for many years. While there he infused the center with the spirit of doing challenging surgery for patients that most other surgeons couldn't or wouldn't do. He pioneered curative craniofacial surgery for ethmoid sinus cancers, a real triumph that became the forerunner of a whole specialty in head and neck surgery. He advanced our knowledge in pelvic exenteration for tumors which most considered at that time incurable and proved in fact that cure was a significant possibility. His courage to push the frontiers of curative surgery for advanced local tumors inspired all who worked with him, many of whom became the surgical oncology leaders of today. At the same time he created a team of surgeon scientists who probed the frontiers and established many aspects of the behavior of metastases, the subject of many of his 300 publications. He served as President of many distinguished surgical societies and established one of the leading surgical oncology fellowship programs in Miami while serving as Chief of Surgical Oncology at the University of Miami.
What especially distinguished Dr. Ketcham was his gift in transferring to his students his love of teaching, of surgery, and the stimulus to dedicate their lives to including research as part of their clinical career. He sparkled in everything he did, showing joy and humor in his work, wisdom, kindness, and empathy with his fellows and his patients, all done with humility, and always transferred the pride of accomplishment to his