Physician

This position is located in the Office of the Associate Director, Surveillance Research Program (SRP), Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS), National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institutes of Health (NIH). SRP supports population-based cancer research to provide a quantitative portrait of cancer in the US population and to understand the factors influencing the cancer burden in specific populations. A premier program in SRP is the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program, which collects and manages high-quality data from cancer registries in specific geographic areas that represent approximately 48 percent of the US population. The primary mission of the SEER Program is to support research on cancer etiology, prevention, treatment, and control.

The registries within the SEER Program have traditionally captured data through manual data collection methods. However, with changing healthcare delivery systems and the increasing complexity and diversity in which cancer care is delivered, manual methods are no longer sufficient nor sustainable to maintain the high levels of data completeness and quality required for the SEER Program. As a result, new methods for capturing critical data to inform cancer trends, treatment, and mortality are needed. The expansion in the availability of data from existing sources such as insurance claims, electronic medical records, and secondary data offers a unique opportunity to enhance the ability of cancer registries to expand both the completeness and depth of data currently collected through innovative informatics methods. Recently SEER has expanded to represent nearly 50 of the US population in its footprint of data collection – representing an increased opportunity to support a broader set of research activities leveraging the SEER infrastructure.

This position is for a Physician within SRP and requires experience in clinical oncology to support the ability of the SEER Program to remain current and appropriate related to the clinical data necessary for cancer surveillance and to provide support to the Program in developing new opportunities using the SEER infrastructure to support research on cancer care and outcomes. This position is critical to provide direction and oversight for the development of new methodologies and tools to automate and enhance the data that we capture in SEER, specifically focusing on new sources in more efficient, cost effective ways and to ensure high quality. Working with the SEER Program leadership, SEER registry directors, and both internal and external stakeholders to ensure the optimization and relevance of the SEER data is a major responsibility for this position, and the incumbent must direct and guide new initiatives to enhance and expand the data that will support a broader and more clinically relevant set of research activities in the future. This position will serve to provide clinical expertise regarding prioritization of the data we collect often working with external subject matter experts across a wide variety of oncology specialty areas. The candidate will also be integral to the assessment of the quality of new data and decisions as to how the data should be released. The candidate will develop, direct, and oversee multiple new initiatives within SRP in support of the goals for the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS). The candidate will be engaged in work related to the development and deployment of a new infrastructure for ensuring accurate and timely data collection, providing consultation as new tools and infrastructures are being developed, and providing clinical perspective for new data repositories, data models, and vocabulary specific to cancer registries. In addition, this position will support the development of core processes and infrastructure to optimize the integration of these new data collection efforts to best support the clinical research community. This position will provide national and international leadership in clinical data collection as it relates to cancer surveillance and will represent the SEER Program at national meetings as well as across the NIH community.

The SEER Program includes 18 CORE registries and 10 Research Support registries. A single data management system (SEER*DMS) is currently in use by nearly all SEER Program registries and will be the platform for all SEER registries moving forward. This position will ensure registries are abiding by standards related to staging variables and other changes in coding guidelines and will allow the ready integration of additional data, such as longitudinal treatment, genomic testing, etc. captured through linkages with external partners. The candidate also has the opportunity to play a role in NCI’s collaboration with the Department of Energy regarding clinical expertise, assisting with interpretation of results and recommendations for incremental work that the partnership is addressing for automated capture of key data in real time.

Along with the data collection role supported by SRP, the distribution and presentation of surveillance data is the second key function of the Program. Thus, a second critical role in assuring the collection of high quality and clinically relevant data through automation and linkages will be to work closely with the other statistical and communications personnel as new methods are developed for data presentation to the public, policymakers, and researchers. This will require oversight and direction of contractors for analytics, web development, and coordination of these activities with both internal and external SEER data users.

The position serves as a clinical expert in SRP that will provide expert and senior level project management in relevant areas and advisory services on state-of-the-art cancer clinical research related to cancer surveillance. The incumbent leads and coordinates various cancer surveillance projects and works with other Government and contract clinical experts, surveillance partners, and end users of cancer surveillance data in the development, planning, implementation, of new data sources as well as in the evaluation of innovative solutions to existing and future challenges to realize a secure, efficient, user-friendly and cost-effective program— the SEER cancer surveillance program.

The location is Rockville, Maryland, close to Washington D.C. The National Cancer Institute is an Equal Opportunity Employer (Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) for federal employees & job applicants).

Important Note: This is a pre-announcement of the vacancy. A formal position announcement will be posted on www.usajobs.gov, and applications must be submitted through that website to be considered.

To learn more about this position, please send a CV and a letter describing your background and interests to Trish Murphy at patricia.murphy@nih.gov.

Please visit our Web pages:
The Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) Program
Surveillance Research Program (SRP)
SRP Branches