Reid Besch (left) and his doctor, Stephen Strickland, MD, MSCI, are both up for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Man of the Year.
A Vanderbilt physician and his patient have a good-natured rivalry going as they compete for the same honor.
Stephen Strickland, MD, MSCI, and Reid Besch are both up for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society Man of the Year. Each has very personal reasons for participating. Strickland lost a sister to leukemia and has a parent battling lymphoma. Besch is regaining his strength after rounds of chemotherapy for leukemia followed by a stem cell transplant eight months ago.
“I had no clue until the campaign manager said there was another someone running who I might know,” Besch said. “When I found out it was my doctor, it was pure joy and pure competition. It was, ‘All right, if we’re going to, be competing against one another, let’s have fun doing it.’”
When the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society approached Strickland, assistant professor of Medicine, about running, he requested that the organization ask Besch first.
“We are competing, but at the same time, we are joined in the same fight, in the same battle to make the journey better for those to come,” Strickland said.
Two years ago, Besch had just started his first job after graduating from Rhodes College, where he had played strong safety on the football team, when he was diagnosed with acute leukemia at age 22. Symptoms hadn’t developed yet when he went to Vanderbilt Orthopaedics to be treated for a labral tear in his hip. He underwent magnetic resonance imaging in advance of a planned surgery, and clinicians noticed an abnormal bone marrow presentation on the MRI. Besch was referred to Strickland.
“I could name probably about 10,000 good things about Dr. Strickland and everyone would agree with me,” Besch said. “I specifically remember the very first consultation I had with him. It was me, my parents and my aunt all in the room. We were just shell-shocked by this news. He took the time to answer any and all questions we had. He was just so calm, cool and collected. As a patient looking back on it now, that is one of the defining moments of my care. I knew that I had everything under control because my doctor so deeply cared for me on that consultation.”
“My motivation for doing what I do lies in significant part based on the fact that I had a sister who was diagnosed as an infant with acute leukemia and who passed away before I was born,” Strickland said. “Once I was old enough to hear about that and understand that, it is something that has stuck with me throughout the years. As I tried to figure out what I wanted to do, I have drawn on that experience to help guide me.”
Besch had T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which required a treatment regimen of multiple drugs administered at different doses at specific schedules.
“Once we got him into remission, the concern was that he was at risk for relapse, so in order to give him the best chance of a durable remission – and ideally a cure – the recommendation was to proceed with a stem cell transplant in the first remission,” Strickland said.
Besch said he was matched with an international donor for his stem cell transplant and would someday like to meet that person.
“Be the Match is a great organization,” Besch said. “Out of the millions of people that were on the registry, I only matched with three. It was a humbling, humbling fact to hear that. For whatever reason, two of the matches just couldn’t go forward with the process. I was down to this one match. All I know is that this international donor stepped forward, and decided to keep going with the process that ultimately saved my life.”
Strickland said the passing of a sister he never got to know played a part in his decision to become a hematologist.
“My motivation for doing what I do lies in significant part based on the fact that I had a sister who was diagnosed as an infant with acute leukemia and who passed away before I was born,” Strickland said. “Once I was old enough to hear about that and understand that, it is something that has stuck with me throughout the years. As I tried to figure out what I wanted to do, I have drawn on that experience to help guide me.”
And in January 2018, his father was diagnosed with lymphoma.
“He is currently engaged in the battle,” Strickland said. “He has fortunately responded well to the therapy.”