Top doctor at Ann B. Barshinger Cancer Institute to retire
Dr. Randall A. Oyer, founding executive medical director of the 11-year-old Ann B. Barshinger Cancer Institute, is retiring.
This comes after a more than 40-year career in medicine, the last 18 years of that spent at Penn Medicine Lancaster General Health. Before his role at the Barshinger Cancer Institute, Oyer was program director for oncology at Lancaster General Hospital. His other roles include medical director of LG Health's Cancer Risk Evaluation Program and clinical professor of medicine. He joined LG Health in 2006, tasked with creating what would become the Barshinger Cancer Institute.
Medical oncologist Efrat Dotan will take over as the head of the Barshinger Cancer Institute on Oct. 7, LG Health spokesperson John Lines said, adding Oyer will remain at the institute in an advisory role until the end of the year. Medical oncologist Sundas Khan will succeed Oyer as medical director of the Cancer Risk Evaluation Program, Oyer said, and will take over seeing the cancer genetics patients. Oyer and Khan have begun seeing patients together, and Khan will assume her new role Oct. 8.
Oyer said he's gotten used to the idea of retiring, and is pleased to have seen the progress in cancer care.
"I'm pleased to have seen such a wonderful cancer institute and a specialized cancer care team at Penn Medicine Lancaster General that's really poised to care for patients for the next generations to come," Oyer said. "And I'm thrilled that the cancer institute attracted a world-class leader such as Dr. Dotan, who's really going to grow the clinical research, geriatrics and cancer specialty treatment programs."
Dotan was chosen to lead the Barshinger Cancer Institute out of a pool of 125 applicants from across the country, Oyer said. Dotan specializes in gastrointestinal cancers and geriatric oncology, and has led national clinical trials for treatments of gastrointestinal malignancies, Lines said. In addition to her executive role she will see patients as part of Barshinger Cancer Institute's gastrointestinal cancer team, Oyer said.
Helping the community
Oyer lives in Lancaster city and is married to retired hospice and palliative care physician Dr. Rosanne Oyer. They have two daughters.
After he retires, Oyer said he wants to do something that will help the community. He signed up for the Lancaster Chamber's Discovering Paths Mentoring Program, and had his first meeting with a high school mentee, he said. The program pairs high school juniors with professionals from across Lancaster County.
During Oyer's tenure, the Barshinger Cancer Institute founded a $50 million proton therapy center, making it the second medical facility in the state to provide this type of cancer treatment.
Before the proton therapy center opened in 2022, radiation oncologists from the Barshinger Cancer Institute sent patients to Philadelphia to receive the treatment, Oyer told LNP | LancasterOnline earlier this year . People who need or benefit from the treatment — which requires daily visits for weeks — can now access it close to home, the Drexel University College of Medicine graduate said.
In proton therapy, a large magnet is used to deliver a beam of positively charged protons. The technology offers a more precise form of radiation treatment that spares healthy tissue near the cancer, Oyer said earlier this year.
