Worta McCaskill-Stevens, MD, former chief of the National Cancer Institute’s (NCI) Community Oncology and Prevention Trials Research Group and former director of the NCI Community Oncology Research Program, died November 15, 2023, at the age of 74.
A member of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) since 2007, she was chair of the Women in Cancer Research Council from 2012-2013 and was a member of the Minorities in Cancer Research (MICR) Council. In 2016, she received the AACR-MICR Jane Cooke Wright Memorial Lectureship.
Born on July 26, 1949, in Louisburg, North Carolina, McCaskill-Stevens attended Washington University in St. Louis and the Georgetown University Medical School, graduating in 1985. At Georgetown, she received the Sarah E. Steward Award for Leadership in Medicine and the Kaiser Family Fund Award for Excellence in Academic Achievement. She trained in internal medicine at Georgetown and completed a fellowship in medical oncology at the Mayo Clinic in 1991.
McCaskill-Stevens worked as a breast cancer oncologist before joining NCI in 1998 in the Community Clinical Oncology Program. She also served as program director for the Study of Tamoxifen and Raloxifene (STAR), which involved nearly 20,000 postmenopausal women at increased risk of breast cancer, and she helped plan the Tomosynthesis Mammographic Imaging Screening Trial (TMIST), an ongoing, international breast cancer screening trial of nearly 130,000 women ages 45 to 74. She herself participated in TMIST.
Monica Bertagnolli, MD, then director of NCI and now director of the National Institutes of Health, announced in August 2023 the creation of a training award named in her honor, the NCI Worta McCaskill-Stevens Career Development Award for Community Oncology and Prevention Research. McCaskill-Stevens worked for NCI for 25 years.
In 2017, Georgetown University awarded McCaskill-Stevens an honorary doctorate in science. She also received the David King Community Clinical Scientist Award from the Association of Community Cancer Centers in 2020.
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So sad to lose this gracious but ferocious advocate for all women!
Judith Salmon Kaur
Words do not suffice the appreciation for the work and commitment exemplified by Dr. McCaskill-Stevens.
Your memory lives on-thank you!
Worta was one of my first neighborhood playmates. We played many games including hide and go seek. Most of all, at that time, she was an accomplished pianist, who did her best to pass along her skills to me, which I never learned. Our grandmothers were long time friends. We kept in touch periodically throughout our lives, last seeing each other in 2018. She made our class and school proud and put our small town on the medical map! She was our phenomenal woman! My sincerest sympathy to her son, family and all those in the medical field who loved her.
Worta was the first person to speak to the need for 'normal breast tissue' many years ago at a meeting at the IU Cancer Center, a meeting sponsored by the advovate group The Catherine Peachey Fund. Her encouragement grew into what is now The Susan G. Komen Tissue Bank at IU. As an advocate, her support, encouragement and frienship gave me the inspiration and courage to have a voice and to believe that speaking up was a responcibility. I loved and respected her as a friend over many years. She was and always will be an inspiration and a vision of a very ellegant woman and friend.
I will always remember Worta traveling out to my Cherokee Nation in OK to discuss tamoxifen trials and reasons for tribal members not taking part. She listened carefully and when she returned to NCI, she added exceptions to the protocol that allowed my community to take part. Bless you Worta!
She will be missed. She was an indefatigable leader of cancer care especially for Minorities and the Medically underserved population. A true Giant in cancer medicine. H A Zaren MD FACS.
Worta was truly an amazing person and she was so giving and helpful to all of us. We will miss her guidance and leadership in the community oncology world. She always held us to the highest standard possible. our deepest sympathy goes out to her family.