Psychiatry

Fawzy I. Fawzy

UCLA Neuropsychiatric Hospital

It might sound far-fetched to think that the proper mental attitude could help a person battle a life-threatening disease like cancer, but Dr. Fawzy I. Fawzy has done pioneering research showing there is indeed a connection.

Fawzy whose main area of research is psycho-oncology, the relationship between psychology and cancer treatment has shown that outlook and proper coping mechanisms can help patients even with incurable ailments like cancer and AIDS.

In a well-known study, he tracked two groups of 34 patients each over a six-year period. Each of the patients had been diagnosed with melanoma and had undergone standard surgery treatment. The group that took part in a six-week support program as a means of coping with their illnesses had only about half as many symptom recurrences and one-third the number of deaths during that time, as did the control group with no support program.

“In medicine, in any kind of science, once you look back in retrospect, it seems that such answers were there all the time,” said Dr. Gerald Levey, Dean of the UCLA School of Medicine. “It’s refreshing that we have a person like Dr. Fawzy who does this kind of work. He’s a world-renowned psychiatrist in the area of cancer.”

Fawzy, 57, who declined to comment for this article, has authored almost 100 articles and manuscripts, as well as having been co-editor of four books. He is also known as an astute administrator, having run UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Hospital for the past two years.

“He’s done a marvelous job in that post,” Levey said. “He took a hospital that was in some trouble and turned it around. It was one of my better appointments.”

The Egyptian-born psychiatrist did his undergraduate work at Cambridge and Oxford universities, and got his medical degree from Cairo University. Associated with UCLA since 1973, Fawzy is currently executive vice chairman of the department of psychiatry and biobehavioral sciences. He serves as a consultant to the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society. He is a member of the board of regents of the American College of Psychiatrists and a past president of the American Society of Psychiatric Oncology and AIDS.

John Brinsley