A $7.8 million estate gift from the late Charles M. Smith, MD, of Sulphur, La., will advance cancer treatment through a longstanding partnership with LSU and Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center that began in 1980. LSU and the Cancer Center leverage their education and research expertise through a joint medical and health physics program.
A family medicine practitioner who devoted his career to helping Louisiana families, Smith developed an appreciation for the critical role of physics and medicine while undergoing lifesaving cancer treatment. Motivated to ensure access to the same quality of care in his home state of Louisiana, Smith established the Dr. Charles M. Smith Chair in Medical Physics at LSU in 2006, shortly after LSU and Mary Bird Perkins announced his commitment to significantly enhancing the medical physics education and research programs.
The LSU-Mary Bird Perkins partnership was forged under the leadership of LSU Professor Emeritus Kenneth Hogstrom and the Cancer Center’s president and CEO, Todd Stevens. Stevens recruited Hogstrom, his former colleague at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, as well as Kevin Carman, former dean of what is now LSU’s College of Science. This innovative partnership is one of the only medical physics programs in the country that marries a university basic science department and a cancer center. Over the past 15 years, the joint program has achieved full accreditation and has become one of a handful of accredited graduate medical physics programs in the country. Smith’s initial gift was a catalyst for Hogstrom, Stevens and Carman’s vision and provided crucial funding for the program to grow. Smith’s legacy investment will be recognized through the naming of the LSU-Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center Dr. Charles M. Smith Medical and Health Physics Program.
LSU President William F. Tate IV said, “When Dr. Smith committed this gift to LSU, he shared that his aspiration for the program is that it becomes the best medical physics program in the world. His enthusiasm for investing in research while educating and recruiting faculty and students who drive innovation has propelled our collaboration with Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Center for the last 15 years. This gift ensures that Dr. Smith’s legacy will foster transformative advancements in the diagnosis of disease, cancer therapy and quality treatment.”
At LSU, Smith’s gift will establish new endowment funds within the College of Science’s Department of Physics & Astronomy to advance LSU and the Cancer Center’s joint academic and research programs: the Dr. Charles M. Smith Medical Physics Endowed Fund, providing year-after-year funding in support of faculty, students, and staff in LSU’s Medical and Health Physics Program; the Dr. Charles M. Smith Distinguished Professorship in Medical Physics, supporting recruitment and retention of faculty and adjunct faculty; and the Dr. Charles M. Smith Superior Graduate Scholarship, supporting graduate students to ensure a continued pipeline of highly qualified medical physicists. Additionally, a portion of Smith’s gift will be dedicated to a new LSU Interdisciplinary Science Building that will bring together students, faculty and researchers in a world-class space for scientific inquiry, discovery, and collaboration.
“Medical physics touches every patient in every community we serve, and it allows us to provide the most effective, individualized treatment plans possible. This type of robust clinical and academic training is a rarity in most mid-sized cities, but our collaboration with LSU helps push the boundaries of modern medicine,” said Stevens. “Dr. Smith’s generous gift will live in perpetuity within Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Foundation, propelling cancer care forward in Louisiana and beyond for generations to come.”
Through Mary Bird Perkins Cancer Foundation, Smith’s estate will establish a Chief of Physics Award to support research and educational activities, a directorship, and multiple Scholar Awards to assist graduate student research, as well as an educational fund to support graduate education programs. These funds will directly enhance medical physics initiatives now and in the future by fostering education and innovation among students and physicists, advancing research opportunities that will enhance treatments, and recruiting the highest quality clinicians in this highly specialized discipline.
Smith, a native of Bogalusa, La., was born on Aug. 24, 1930, and passed away Sept. 15, 2020. He earned a Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences from LSU in 1951 and a medical degree from LSU Medical School in New Orleans in 1955. He was a flight surgeon in the U.S. Air Force for two years, then opened his medical practice in Sulphur in 1957, practicing for 35 years and serving as coroner for Calcasieu Parish for more than 20 years.