Longtime oncologist retiring from UPMC Hillman in Butler
BUTLER TWP — Dr. Hung-Chi Ho has spent long hours at work comforting patients undergoing treatment for cancer.
As medical director of radiation oncology for Independence Health System Butler, Ho enjoys his work and speaking with patients. However, after about 37 years at the practice, Ho will retire in October, fulfilling a promise he made to his patients that he would only leave the Benbrook Medical Center if he retired.
“I love all my patients. I had a patient crying this morning,” Ho said Sept. 21. “I have until the middle of October, I promised this community my last day would be here.”
Ho is an employee of UPMC who works for Independence Health System at the Benbrook campus. He started working through UPMC in the 1980s, before the area had nearby access to medical oncology.
Ho has treated thousands of patients, and said a personal record of his is treating four generations of people in one family. To him, he isn’t just a person treating an invasive disease, he said he is working to support the whole health of a patient.
“We’re not just treating cancer, we treat the whole body,” Ho said.
Although he will no longer work at the Benbrook Medical Center, Ho said he plans to stay in the area, and will likely remain in his home north of Pittsburgh. Additionally, the practice will go on under the leadership of another longtime face at the center, Dr. Victor Onufrey.
Onufrey has been an oncologist for the UMPC Hillman Cancer Center since 1992. He will be taking on Ho’s patients, and explained how the treatment process at the center has evolved in his years of work. The practice now uses a CT scan to identify cancers more accurately than possible before.
“The CT scan helps identify spots so the radiation can be focused,” Onufrey said. “We’re a lot more fine-tuned these days with treatments.”
According to Onufrey, it can take more than a week for a patient to enter treatment, even after their cancer is identified. He said that despite the slower startup time, the treatment process is made smoother by the preparation.
“It takes a little more time to get treatments going, but the payoff is fewer side effects during treatment and more efficient treatment,” Onufrey said.
Ho said creating a treatment plan that accommodates a patient’s personal life and goals has been his mission as oncologist, because he wants his patients to feel good along the way. He said walking patients through their treatment and following up with them afterward is an aspect of the job he will miss most.
“We need to let patients live their lives,” Ho said. “My goal is not just to see cancer, it's to treat cancer patients.”
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