Center Profile: James Foran, M.D.

Crossroads salutes James Foran, M.D., assistant professor of medicine and UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center associate scientist. Dr. Foran specializes in the research and treatment of leukemias and lymphomas and is a nationally recognized expert on these diseases. The recipient of numerous awards and honors, Dr. Foran is a member of both the American Society of Hematology and the American Society of Clinical Oncology.              

James Foran, M.D., has followed a meandering path throughout his career, from Canada to Boston, across the Atlantic to London, then deep into America’s heartland and the heart of the Deep South. But this dynamic clinician feels that his global hopscotching has led him to the exact spot where he is supposed to be—the UAB Comprehensive Cancer Center.  

Discovering Medicine in Manitoba            
Originally, medicine was not a career that intrigued Dr. Foran as he was growing up in Winnipeg in the Canadian province of Manitoba. “Becoming a doctor wasn’t a lifelong ambition of mine,” he says. “Everybody in my family is a lawyer, so that was the one thing I knew I didn’t want to be.”            

Dr. Foran’s interest in medicine actually developed when he was an undergraduate at the University of Manitoba. He began studying biology, eventually moving into molecular biology, which then evolved into medicine. It was a good fit for Dr. Foran, who would go on to receive his bachelor’s and medical degrees in Manitoba.            

After graduation, Dr. Foran accepted an internship at the Beth Israel Hospital at Harvard Medical School in Boston. Massachusetts would be his home for the next five years—as well as the setting for two major developments in his life.            

First, he discovered the specialty path that would shape his career. While interning, Dr. Foran met Bob Mayer, M.D., a physician at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, who introduced Dr. Foran to the world of oncology. “He impressed me with what he knew about cancer and how he managed patients through his excellence as a clinician,” Dr. Foran says. “I felt cancer was a place where you had to be an outstanding doctor as well as a good internist and subspecialist.”

Dr. Foran adds that he did not shy away from the challenges involved with treating cancer. “I’m drawn to difficult things. If there are two things to do, and one is easy and one is hard, I tend to do the hard one,” he says.            

The second major development in Boston for Dr. Foran was meeting his future wife. A medical student herself, the former Mary Prendergast had come to Boston for the summer from her native Ireland. They met on rotation at the hospital, and he asked her out. “I think she was looking for an American boy, but she ended up with a Canadian,” Dr. Foran recalls with a laugh. The two married in Ireland in 1995 and prepared to take the next step in their lives and careers.            

Moving to London              
After completing a clinical fellowship in medical oncology at Dana-Farber, Dr. Foran began looking for professional opportunities at other hospitals. Because his grandparents were from Scotland and his new in-laws were in Ireland, the United Kingdom seemed to be a promising place for relocation. Dr. Foran and his wife moved to London, where he accepted a position in the Department of Medical Oncology at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.            

There Dr. Foran soon discovered that he needed to narrow his focus if he wanted to be a successful cancer clinician. “It surprised me that oncology wasn’t enough of a specialty,” he says. “I felt that I had to pick an area of focus to get something done.”            

Dr. Foran applied for a fellowship at St. Bartholomew’s to study leukemias and lymphomas. “I immediately realized that’s what I was supposed to do; it automatically clicked,” he says.            

Dr. Foran recalls London as “where I learned to be a real doctor. I had to make a lot of decisions based upon listening to the patient, talking to the patient, examining the patient,” he says. “It was a very academic environment.”            

Dr. Foran had originally intended to stay in London for just a year, but it turned into six. Eventually he and his wife came to a point when they felt the United States was the best place to move their careers to the next level.  

Coming to America            
In 2000, Dr. Foran accepted a position as an assistant professor of medicine in the hematology-oncology section at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha. He was there only two years before Birmingham entered the picture as a possibility.            

While moving to Omaha had been Dr. Foran’s decision, moving to Birmingham was actually his wife’s choice. She was recruited for a fellowship in the UAB Division of Nephrology, and in 2002, both she and Dr. Foran joined the UAB faculty. “It turned out to be the best decision for both of us,” Dr. Foran says.

Since his arrival at UAB, Dr. Foran has become an active and vital member of the Cancer Center. He serves as a chair of the center’s Hematologic Malignancy Working Group, and until last year, he was director of the Fellowship Training Program.            

Dr. Foran’s clinical research is also an extremely active enterprise. While he treats all types of leukemias and lymphomas, his research concentrates on two specific subsets of those diseases: acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL). For AML, much of his research involves finding new therapies to treat older patients, while his work with NHL deals with disparities in outcomes among different racial groups.            

Dr. Foran is grateful for the opportunities that come with working at an institution like UAB. “The Cancer Center is a center of excellence,” he says. “The entrepreneurial spirit here means that you can get more done, you can try more things and you can get more funding for research. I have opportunities here that I might not have had elsewhere.”  

Balance and Goals            
Dr. Foran typically spends two or three days a week in the clinic treating patients. The rest of the time, he is busy writing clinical trials and developing prospective studies. When he is not working, he tries to swim at least twice a week, ride his bicycle and walk his two dogs as much as possible. He and his wife also own two horses. “There’s so much to do outdoors in Birmingham; it’s great,” he says.

“For about 10 years, everything I did was based on building my career, and I got to the point where I had forgotten how to swim and ride a bike, and I could speak only in three-letter abbreviations for medical terms,” Dr. Foran says. “I’m trying to be more balanced in life. I try to read at least one book a month that’s not about medicine, and my New Year’s resolution is to eat less barbecue.”            

Though he admits that working in cancer is challenging, Dr. Foran believes that it is an area of medicine where he can make a difference. “It’s all about how you set your goals,” he says. “It’s not about winning or losing. It’s about what you can accomplish for each patient. I can’t cure everybody. I can cure some people sometimes. But even if I can’t cure them, I can help them.”