By Shikha Jain, MDAt Women in Medicine®, we talk often about the power of community: the colleagues who open doors for us, the friends who carry us through hard seasons, and the networks that make a career in medicine not only possible but sustainable.
Few people lived that more fully than Dr. Rachna Shroff.
Rachna was an internationally recognized expert in cholangiocarcinoma and gastrointestinal cancers, chief of hematology and oncology at the University of Arizona Cancer Center, and a mother, wife, sister, daughter and friend. Her research expanded what was possible for patients who urgently needed more options. Yet when you ask the people who knew her best what they remember most, they return again and again to the same thing: the way she brought people together and lifted them up.
I recently shared my own reflections on Rachna in Healio, including how she answered an email from an oncologist she barely knew and helped me find my footing in a new role. For this piece, I wanted to share the memories of others who knew and loved her, so I asked several of her friends and colleagues to write about her. Their words, in their own voices, describe a woman who understood that no one rises alone.
She made more possible
I met Rachna the first day of oncology fellowship; from that day forward, we were each other’s most important peer mentors. We shepherded each other through learning what it means to be a caring and productive oncologist, and what it means to be a woman in this ever-changing field. Because of her, I always knew that more was possible, that I could ask for more, pivot in my career, be something new or learn how to be a better version of myself. She was a champion for all of us and will be forever remembered as an example of pursuing a limitless career.
-Nina Shah MD, Vice President, Multiple Myeloma Clinical Development & Strategy, AstraZeneca
She was a uniter
I met Rachna over a decade ago, when we first crossed paths through our work with the Cholangiocarcinoma Foundation. Later, I had the privilege of being a co-investigator on her trial, SWOG 1815, and watching her deftly and gracefully navigate the NCTN to lead it to fruition. It was clear from the first that Rachna was someone special who could bridge gaps across disciplines and backgrounds and find a common purpose. Always a uniter, I can’t count the number of connections and friendships Rachna has kindled over the years! Whenever together, those of us around her would stand a bit straighter and absorb some of her confidence, energy, and drive. Like so many others whose lives and careers she touched, I will cherish the memory of this inspiring colleague and forever friend.
-Robin K. (“Katie”) Kelley, MD, Professor of Clinical Medicine; Chair, Data and Safety Monitoring Committee, Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center; Co-Director for Clinical Research, Division of Hematology Oncology, University of California, San Francisco
She built a sisterhood
I met Rachna many moons ago, an arranged marriage when one of her MD Anderson mentors, James Abbruzzese, connected us on my first clinical trial for cholangiocarcinoma patients. I was immediately bowled over by her limitless energy, laser focus on what was best for our patients, and confidence in her mission. What I didn’t realize is how she would be a lasting “humsafar,” a word in our language that means “fellow traveler.”
We shared so much in the too-short time she was given: an irreverence for maintaining the status quo, constant humor, pop music including a love of Beyoncé and the dance moves associated with that, support for each other as we tried to maintain a balance between our passion for work and the family we loved, and most lastingly, a sisterhood of women oncologists that elevated each other and became like a family. She cared for people easily and widely, and it is a credit to her huge heart that so many people felt loved and truly seen by her.
-Nilofer Azad, MD, FASCO, Professor of Oncology; Associate Director of Clinical Research, Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University
She reached out first
Even as a “newer” friend, it was still about a decade of friendship, and I felt Rachna’s love the whole way. After she reached out to me on Facebook saying we needed to meet, I came to know the same remarkable person so many others knew across decades, always running at a million miles an hour and giving herself fully in every role: as a physician, a mom, a best friend, a sister, a daughter and a wife.
She embodied what it means to be a woman in medicine: excellence and compassion held together, without apology. Though her life was cut far too short, she lived fully, bringing light to everyone she touched and bringing people together in the most beautiful ways, including a GI oncology sisterhood. She reminds the rest of us to cherish our people and give fully, which is its own kind of gift. I am so grateful to have been in her orbit.
-Aparna Parikh, MD, FASCO Associate Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Program Director, GI Medical Oncology, Colorectal, Anal, and Neuroendocrine
Director of the MGB Global Cancer Care Program, Massachusetts General Hospital, Tucker Gosnell Center for Gastrointestinal Malignancies
Making room for others to rise
Reading these memories, I keep noticing how many of them begin the same way, with Rachna making the first move. A message on Facebook. A reply to an email from someone she barely knew. An introduction from a mentor that she turned into a lifelong friendship. She never seemed to need a reason to invest in someone beyond believing they were worth it.
She also understood that friendship belongs in medicine. In 2018, she and Dr. Nina Shah stood up at ASCO, a meeting devoted to scientific discovery, and spoke about what their friendship meant and how those connections carry us through the hardest parts of oncology. Their message has stayed with me ever since. When she was nominated for an IStandWithHer Award at the Women in Medicine Summit™, it felt exactly right. She stood with so many of us.
In the final months of her life, Rachna helped bring together more than 600 donors to raise over $1.35 million for the Conquer Cancer ‒ Rachna Shroff, MD, MS, FASCO Endowed Young Investigator Award in Biliary Cancers, which will fund a new investigator every year in perpetuity. She had received a Conquer Cancer Young Investigator Award early in her own career, and she knew what that support could make possible. Even while facing cancer herself, she was making room for others to rise.
Carrying her legacy forward
Rachna’s legacy lives in her research and in the young investigators who will one day receive an award bearing her name, whose work will carry her impact into the future. It also lives in the people she loved and lifted: in the colleague who answers an email from someone she barely knows, in the friend who makes the introduction, in the woman who reaches out and says, “We need to meet.”
I miss her. I am grateful for every panel we shared, every conversation, and every reminder she gave me of what it looks like to lead with your whole heart.
Whether you knew Rachna for decades or are only meeting her through these words, I hope you will carry a little of her generosity forward. Answer the email. Make the intrduction. Tell a colleague what she means to you. And if you are able, consider supporting the Conquer Cancer ‒ Rachna Shroff, MD, MS, FASCO Endowed Young Investigator Award in Biliary Cancers so that her investment in the next generation keeps growing.
We are so grateful to have known her. Let us keep lifting one another, the way she lifted us.
-Shikha Jain, MD, FACP, is the founder and board chair of Women in Medicine®.