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DR. SHAHEENAH DAWOOD - HAPPINESS THROUGH ONCOLOGY EXCELLENCE
With big ambitions for advancing the UAE’s field of oncology, Dr. Shaheenah Dawood balances multiple projects, roles, and research initiatives across the UAE and beyond. Here, the Emirati oncologist reveals more about her journey.
As an oncologist juggling many scientific and leadership roles, Dr. Shaheenah Dawood is guided by a relatively simple philosophy – do what makes you happy and put your all into achieving it. “My parents taught me that if your work doesn’t make you happy, then don’t do it. I believe you should find out what makes you happy and do your best to achieve it. I am very lucky in that I found the field I love and do what makes me happy,” shared the Emirati oncologist.
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Dr. Dawood has been pursuing her happiness in the form of excellence in oncology care, research, program development, and conference management for the past two decades. She even founded an international medical conference – the Excellence in Oncology Care (EIOC) summit – with that focus in its name, in support of her goal of advancing oncology in her home country of the UAE. Besides being the founder and president of the EIOC, Dr. Dawood is also a Consultant Medical Oncologist at Mediclinic Middle East (MCME) and Associate Professor of Clinical Oncology at Mohammed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences (MBRU).
Surprisingly, oncology wasn’t on Dr. Dawood’s radar when she completed her first medical degree – an MBBCh in Medicine from Dubai Medical College – in 1998. She was leaning towards specializing in neurology at the time and considering accepting a training program in the US. However, a chance meeting with Emirati oncologist Dr. Zulfaqqar Ali Jaffar, who would become her first mentor, steered her in an entirely new direction.
“Dr. Zulfaqqar helped me realize that oncology was the right field for me – that not only was it interesting, but also fulfilling. And it is,” she asserted. “The satisfaction you get from seeing someone being cured of cancer is unimaginable. I always say that you can’t cure hypertension and diabetes, but to cure that one patient with cancer? It is the most tremendous feeling that I’ve ever experienced.”
Having decided on her new specialization, Dr. Dawood applied for a medical oncology residency program at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. At McGill, she discovered she did not just want to treat cancer – she wanted to research it, too. “I’ve always had an inquisitive mind. I’d always ask questions beyond the scope of the training I was receiving.” In fact, she recalled her mentor at McGill once asking, “Why don’t you get into the research aspect as well? You can ask those clinical questions.”
With that new goal in mind, Dr. Dawood chose to follow up her oncology residency with a sub-specialization in breast cancer at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, where she was a Susan G. Komen fellow. This experience not only enabled her to publish with leading researchers, but also helped her identify the additional skills she should acquire to achieve her broader goals. When Dr. Dawood embarked upon her studies abroad, she had an objective of bringing her expertise back home to the UAE. She wanted to improve patient care, advance cancer research and research infrastructure, and facilitate international collaborations to achieve both. To improve her ability to pursue independent research, she took on an editorial fellowship at the New England Journal of Medicine. With a focus on clinical effectiveness and decision analysis, Dr. Dawood simultaneously pursued a Master of Public Health at Harvard School of Public Health to enhance her ability to analyze health registries and databases for larger epidemiological trends.
“Those two final programs gave me the tools to be able to pursue my research independently, which ultimately was my goal because I’d always intended to return to the UAE. The country’s infrastructure for research was not as developed at the time, and I knew that, at home, I would be working on projects very different from those in Europe or America. I wanted to ensure I had gathered all the necessary skills to be able to contribute to oncology care and research in the UAE,” she explained.
Since returning to the UAE in 2008, Dr. Dawood has been making good on those goals. She served as both Head of the Breast Cancer Program and Head of Medical Oncology at Dubai Hospital in addition to working as a Consultant Medical Oncologist for Dubai Health Authority. In 2009, she launched the annual EIOC, of which she is still president. The event provides a platform for global and regional oncology experts to meet and share their knowledge. From there, Dr. Dawood has also expanded her role in leading international medical summits. She leads both the Asia Pacific Breast Cancer and Asia Pacific Gastroenterology Cancer summits, as well as the International BRCA Forum, a leading forum on hereditary cancer. The recently launched APMEA Molecular Tumor Board is also her brainchild.
Just one year after launching the EIOC, Dr. Dawood published what she considers to be her most impactful research paper to date: “Prognosis of Women with Metastatic Breast Cancer by HER2 Status and Trastuzumab Treatment: An InstitutionalBased Review.” It was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology and has over 520 citations on Scopus. The paper dealt with her collaborative research into the treatment of breast cancer patients with human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2) positive cancer and the use of an anti-HER2 antibody. The presence of HER2 enables the faster, more aggressive growth of cancer cells, which has made HER2positive breast cancer more deadly than other breast cancer types.
In 1998, metastatic HER2-positive cancer was being treated with trastuzumab, a targeted cancer drug. In 2004, trastuzumab treatment was expanded to early-stage HER2-positive breast cancer patients, where it was also found to reduce the risk of recurrence and death by 50%. Dr. Dawood wanted to understand if the use of trastuzumab had equalized the prognosis of HER2-positive breast cancer patients and HER2-negative breast cancer patients, as the former typically had far worse prognoses. To measure and analyze the impact of trastuzumab on HER2positive breast cancer, data from three patient cohorts was examined: HER2positive patients treated with trastuzumab, HER2-positive patients who never received trastuzumab, and HER2-negative patients.
Analysis found that treatment with trastuzumab improved the health outcomes of patients with HER2-positive breast cancer – even beyond HER2negative breast cancer patients – proving its impact. “This research got me my first merit award and oral presentation at the American Society of Clinical Oncology, and it was a defining moment in my career,” revealed Dr. Dawood.
Soon after, Dr. Dawood joined Dubai Hospital, where she added the development of cancer registries for the UAE to her work. Cancer registries are important tools in public health management as they store data that can be used to examine cancer trends in a population. This, in turn, can be used to plan health programs, improve patient care, and better control cancer. “There’s nothing like prospectively collecting data and being able to ask important questions that can help change the clinical care of your patients,” she said.
A few years later, Dr. Dawood joined MCME to work as a Consultant Medical Oncologist and develop its cancer research program, where she has since remained. In 2017, she received a research grant
- Dr. Shaheenah Dawood, Associate Professor of Clinical Oncology Mohammed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences
from Al Jalila Foundation – another career highlight according to the oncologist. She led the project team’s investigation into the genomic-level differences among the UAE’s early-stage breast cancer patients. She presented the research findings at the 2020 MCME Research Conference, for which she won the award for best oral abstract presentation.
Explaining how the country’s demographics contributed to the significance of her research, the doctor said, “What makes our cohort of patients so interesting is that we’re such a multiethnic society in the UAE. We have nationalities from all over, which affords us the opportunity to study the differences in genomics between groups, comparing and contrasting that to what is being seen in Europe and the US. I am very proud of this research, which we are currently working to publish.”
When asked what motivated her to take on such challenging roles and projects, Dr. Dawood credited the guidance of her many mentors, the loving support of her parents, her patients, and the UAE’s rulers.
very proud of this research, which we are currently working to publish.”
The year 2017 also marked Dr. Dawood’s first foray into teaching. She joined MBRU as an associate professor to formally transfer her knowledge and skills to future doctors and answer more challenging research questions. “Research without teaching is meaningless,” she said. “If you’re researching but not teaching the next generation of medical students and researchers how to take it forward, it means nothing.”
When asked what motivated her to take on such challenging roles and projects, Dr. Dawood credited the guidance of her many mentors, the loving support of her parents, her patients, and the UAE’s rulers. “I wouldn’t be able to go to work every day with a smile on my face or keep thinking up new clinical questions without my patients. They inspire me every single moment. And I thank them for continually driving me. I also believe the UAE is one of the world’s most amazing countries – we have everything here – and this is due in large part to our rulers. They are our mentors, who have provided us with all of the resources we need to do something great for the country. They inspire us to go above and beyond.”
For Dr. Dawood, above and beyond translates to working tirelessly to improve the lives of her patients, building more cancer programs, facilitating more international collaboration and, along the way, possibly helping to cure cancer. “I hope that by continuing to work in this field of precision medicine, we are going to find that genomic signature, that biomarker, or that individual treatment strategy to essentially cure cancer,” she shared. “I know it’s a very ambitious statement to make, but I believe you should be ambitious.”
