2019: Kathryn H. Schmitz, PhD, MPH, FACSM

The 31st Annual J. Warren Perry Lecture, Exercise Is Medicine in Oncology: Changing the Culture of Cancer.

University at Buffalo Lecture to Address Exercise’s Role in Oncology

Kathryn H. Schmitz.

Dr. Schmitz is a professor of public health sciences at the Pennsylvania State University’s College of Medicine. Last year she chaired the International Multidisciplinary American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) Roundtable on Exercise and Cancer Prevention and Control. The physicians, outpatient rehabilitation specialists, researchers and exercise professionals in the room broadly agreed it is time for exercise oncology to go prime-time; the question is, how? Dr. Schmitz’s professional mission is to answer that question, and her Nov. 12 lecture will address the issue.

Dr. Schmitz has published more than 230 peer-reviewed scientific papers and has had $25 million dollars in funding for her research since 2001. As an exercise interventionist, she has led multiple trials and translated her work into clinical practice. An online educational training program to prepare exercise professionals and physical therapists to deliver one of her breast cancer exercise programs has been delivered to more than 700 outpatient rehabilitation specialists across the country.

Dr. Schmitz was lead author of the first ACSM Roundtable on Exercise for Cancer Survivors, which in 2010 published guidance for exercise testing and prescription for cancer survivors. An updated international consensus statement on exercise and cancer was published recently (in 2019).  In June 2017, Dr. Schmitz became president-elect of ACSM and assumed the presidency in June 2018. Currently, she serves as immediate past president of the organization.