...

• Download the PDF: Sondik_Edward_Oral_History_2009 (PDF 217 kB)
• Download the MP3: sondikedward.mp3 (MP3 21.17 MB)

National Cancer Institute

Division of Cancer Prevention Oral History Project Interview with Edward Sondik

Conducted on January 9, 2009, by Philip L. Cantelon

History Associates Inc. 

Biographical Statement

Dr. Edward Sondik currently serves as the Director of the National Cancer Center for Health Statistics (NCCHS) of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. A native of Hartford, Connecticut, Dr. Sondik received his BS and MS in electrical engineering from the University of Connecticut. In 1971 he earned a PhD in electrical engineering from Stanford Medical School. While there, Dr. Sondik assisted with the design of a new hospital for Stanford and eventually taught at the University. Dr. Sondik began work at the National Institutes of Health as the Chief of the Program Analysis and Evaluation Branch of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in 1976. Six years later, he joined the Biometrics and Research Operations Branch of the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control. While working for the DCPC, he advanced to the position of Associate Director of the Surveillance Program and became the Deputy Director in 1989. In 1992 National Cancer Institute (NCI) Director Samuel Broder appointed Dr. Sondik to the position of Acting Deputy Director of NCI. Shortly before taking the position of Director at the NCCHS, Dr. Sondik also served as Acting Director of NCI. In 1996 Dr. Sondik left NIH for his current position at the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

This interview covers Dr. Sondik’s early work with the Division of Cancer Prevention and Control and the growth of epidemiology. He discusses the pioneering aspects of the division and the development of the Cancer Surveillance Program and the Surveillance, Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) Program. While working for the DCP and the NCI, Dr. Sondik assumed administrative roles and his work often concerned policy and coordination between NCI, the NIH, and even Congress. This interview reflects his transition from SEER director to influential administrator.  

PC:     All right. I'm speaking with --

...

So anyway, I came back and I worked in NHLBI.   I became very interested in what I was doing and NIH decided that I wasn't going to go back to Stanford, at least right away. Around my fifth or six year, I heard that NCI was starting a biometrics and operations research branch. And I said, "Well, whoever is talking about operations research at NIH is my kind of person," because there was no activity like that at that point at NIH. There was of course, focus on the usual analytic sciences, epidemiology, demography and mammography to a degree. But I said "operations research is focused on decision making." And I said, "That's really quite crucial to health policy." So it turns out it was Peter Greenwald. And Peter Greenwald's office, it turns out, was one floor, literally one 

...

one floor below where I was located.

...

 I was on the fifth floor in Building 31A, and he was

...

on the fourth floor in Building 31A. So I went down and talked to him, and came to be

...

the head of that new branch.

PC:

...

      Uh-huh. So this was what year?

ES:

...

      That's how I got there.

PC:

...

      This was what year?

ES:

...

      You know, I knew you'd ask me. I'm just terrible. '82 – probably '82.

PC:

...

      '82, '83? Somewhere in there?

ES:

...

      Something, yeah, like that. Yes, '82.

PC:

...

      And what was the status of DCPC in the early 80s in, well, let’s say in NCI?

ES:

...

      Status in what sense?

PC:

...

      Well, where –

ES:      How it was viewed or –

...

PC:     '92 follow-up report on Cancer Control Objectives to the Nation.

ES:      You know, I really don't remember much effect from that, other than it was a kind of forerunner for the kinds of things that actually we do here in the NCHS about looking at the progress that's been made. I recall it as that. And if anything, now as – I really would need to go back and look at it, is that it was a sort of a sobering look about progress, which in the cancer – magnitude of cancer, which hadn't changed very much, was certainly not going in the right direction.

...

ES:      Well, I was – I got kind of a battlefield promotion when Sam Broder was director and I became the NCI Acting Deputy Director. The then current Deputy Director had unexpectedly died. An acting deputy director for NCI was needed. So Broder came down from the eleventh floor to the tenth floor, walked in on me one day and said, "How would you like to be the acting deputy director?" I was completely floored. So as they say, it seemed like a good idea at the time, so I said yes. We briefly thereafter encountered a scandal related to breast cancer treatment. Do you know what I'm talking about?

...

PC:     I'm sorry, I didn't hear that.

ES:

...

     One second. Communication is a little iffy in the elevator.

PC:

...

     Yeah.

ES:

...

     One more floor. Just a second.

PC:

...

     I can hear you.

ES:

...

     [Indiscernible]. I just realized I left something in the car.

PC:

...

     Well –

ES:

...

      I was just going to say, I guess, that – are there other questions that you would want to ask?

PC:

...

      Well, you may think – I've pretty much run through mine.

ES:

...

      Okay.

PC:

...

     But if you have something you want to add after reading it, let me know.

ES:

...

      Oh, okay.

PC:     All right?

ES:      All right. Well, you're not going to publish this transcript, I hope.

...