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Dr. Richard Godfrey
I've joined what I think is now a revolution in cancer work that for the first time ever in history, we can now eliminate a cancer. In the old days, it was cryotherapy, but now we can take a little briefcase that has a very small device that is called thermocoagulation. And if a patient turns out to be positive and then under inspection is noted to have early cancer, we can treat that patient in 20 seconds.
Podcast Narrator
From Rotary magazine, this is the Rotary Voices podcast.
Naila Boudu
I'm Naila Boudu.
Podcast Narrator
Every minute and a half a woman dies from cervical cancer. It's the fourth most common cancer in women globally. But it's also a cancer that's highly preventable and a 15 minute treatment could save lives. That's Rotarian surgical oncologist and author Dr.
Naila Boudu
Richard Godfrey talking about one of the
Podcast Narrator
many procedures he's done all over the world. His international work has taken him from Nepal to Nicaragua, Guatemala, Kenya and more. His forthcoming book, medical Moonshot's Winning the Cancer War, talks about his life saving work helping communities combat cervical cancer. He also offers some practical advice about assessing your own risk for cancer. The Rotary foundation has awarded 150 global grants totaling more than $12.4 million to fund cervical cancer projects since 2014. I recently sat down with Dr. Godfrey to discuss cervical cancer, his career, and his journey to Rotary.
Naila Boudu
Dr. Richard Godfrey, welcome to Rotary Voices.
Dr. Richard Godfrey
Well, thank you very much. I'm very honored to have this opportunity.
Naila Boudu
I'm grateful that we get a chance to talk about your career and also your work with cervical cancer and particularly how Rotarians around the world have been involved with this. But I thought we could start at the beginning. Can you just tell us what led you to surgical oncology to begin with?
Dr. Richard Godfrey
At some point in our family experience, somebody suffered a difficult cancer. So that certainly moved me into the field of medicine. I was an aspiring writer and sort of blue collar, jack of all trades, master of none. But then I started medical school late. I wanted to do family practice, but I was encouraged to go into surgery. So I ended up doing a fellowship in surgical oncology. And that's what I've been doing for a long time. I'm retired now, but I'm really excited that I had an opportunity to pursue this new direction.
Podcast Narrator
Can you tell me how you first
Naila Boudu
got involved with Rotary?
Dr. Richard Godfrey
Oh, gosh. I had a patient that I was taking care of, did multiple operations on him, and every time I would see him, he said, you've got to come to a meeting. I'm in the Niles Rotary Club. Like many Rotarians, it ended up being a life changing experience. I had a dynamic club. When I first joined. I said, I want this club to help me to do work in Africa. I have a lot, a lot of projects in Kenya. And it turned out we were able to fund probably the only orthopedic surgeon in western Kenya and get him through his residency training. So I was impressed with that and I thought, wow, my club loves to do community work, but they also like international work. So I became the international chair. We made trips to Kenya and from there one thing led to the next. And I'll talk a little bit about working in cervical cancer. But I could never have dreamed how many things would happen within the world of Rotary to pursue something that has never really been done in the history of medicine and that is the potential to eliminate a cancer on the whole planet.
Naila Boudu
I was going to ask how your work with Rotary changed your perspective on your medical career.
Dr. Richard Godfrey
Well, I've joined what I think is now a revolution in cancer work, that for the first time ever in history, we can now eliminate a cancer. I've never felt so much purpose and being part of such a larger group. Just to give you a rough Idea, there are 150 global grants right now through Rotary that are working in the area of cervical cancer and screening and vaccination. We just did a scale up program in Egypt for $2 million. And I think we're just at the beginning of all this. But I'm part of this extraordinary group of Rotarians from all the world that are now realizing we can do this.
Naila Boudu
It's remarkable to think that there could be an end to one type of cancer. So let's talk about cervical cancer. What do you want people to know about the causes of cervical cancer?
Dr. Richard Godfrey
Well, it's caused essentially by a virus, a HPV virus. Some people call it the papillomavirus. You know, we thought at one time in early medicine that maybe all cancers were caused by viruses. That's not true. But this is one cancer that we clearly identify as being associated with the human papillomavirus. And because of that, we have ways through vaccination and screening now to eliminate it. And I'm talking about 660,000 women globally that are getting this cancer. It's the fourth most common cause of women's death in the world. And I should point out every 90 seconds a woman is dying of cervical cancer. It's a horrendous, horrible cancer to suffer and it's entirely preventable. So we've come to the knowledge that we have a vaccine and we have a lot of technology going on today. We learned with COVID how quickly technology can advance. So because of that, that same technology now can be used to do screening. So that's what Rotary gives me and others an opportunity to do, is we can go into countries where before they've never had any screening. You know, of course, in the United States, we. The Pap smear. But even now, the new technology, the DNA HPV testing, is far more accurate than is the Pap smear. And if a woman is negative, she can really go for five years without having to even go in for an exam or all the discomfort of the Pap smear. And so it's really changed the dynamics of this particular cancer, and it's unique to cervical cancer.
Naila Boudu
I will say, as a veteran of menipap smears, an alternative would be great. I find it fascinating, the work that you're doing, particularly throughout Latin America, where women are given at home screening. Can you tell us a little bit about how that would work?
Dr. Richard Godfrey
In a nutshell, there are about 300 different machines that can do this DNA testing. And of those, about 25 are FDA approved. And the particular one that I use is not very expensive. It costs around $13,000. This particular machine can test 1,000 women in one day. So that's significant because a woman doesn't even have to come to the hospital. The healthcare team can go out to the community. They can ask for women in those communities to take a brush and do a simple vaginal swab that goes into a test tube. The test tube goes, and it gets worked up in the lab with some reagents that goes into the machine. And within about an hour, you have the test coming back. And of interest, about 80% of the time, the test will actually be negative, meaning that the woman is good for as much as five years. If it's positive, then it's necessary to do more screening. We typically do something called via, which is visual examination with acetic acid. And that requires having a pelvic exam, coming to the hospital, and applying no more than 5% vinegar, which allows you to identify if a woman has the early stages of cancer. And if they do, you can cure the woman of that early stage of cancer in 20 seconds. It's just so incredible. But we have that capacity now, so we go to many of these countries, we introduce the testing in a hospital. We train the people. It's called Train the trainers. I've worked with a number of nonprofits in that field. And we're able to really reach out to large parts of whatever community we go to. It's really taken off. And there's Rotary groups all over the globe right now that are really taking this up.
Naila Boudu
Can you just tell me what countries you've done this in? Maybe pick a country you've gone to and just walk me through how that's worked.
Dr. Richard Godfrey
I started working in a clinic in Guatemala about 20 years ago. So we got involved with a Rotary club in Guatemala. It's called the Urbari Club. We were asked by this club to set up this training. So we did. I went with a group of dynamic and energetic ladies called Pink, which is Prevention International Cervical Cancer. And we would go to Belize, and then we'd load up in a van and drive up to Guatemala, and we would do these clinics. And a typical clinic would have as many as 500 patients all coming in to be screened. And that's kind of where we got started. And that model we are using right now all over different parts of the world. And my interest was always in breast cancer, but I was asked to join the board of Pink, and so I said, well, I'll screen for cervical cancer if you promise to screen for breast cancer. And it's taken a long time for that to come into reality. But right now in Guatemala, I just came back and we are setting up to do screening with a mobile van where we can screen both for cervical cancer and for breast cancer using ultrasound. It's part of a group called the Mayan Health Alliance. Remember in polio, when Bill and Melinda Gates came and said, let's help out Rotary and let's get rid of polio. So this Mayan Health alliance has hooked up with Melinda Gates, and so I think that kind of grant is going to allow this to grow. And I would love to see Guatemala take on cervical cancer throughout the whole country.
Naila Boudu
It sounds like the screening for cervical cancer, obviously, is much less invasive and cheaper and easier to replicate than breast cancer.
Dr. Richard Godfrey
Oh, absolutely. You can screen a patient for $6 and give her the results liter in the same day. You can also treat that patient. In the old days, it was cryotherapy, but now we can take a little briefcase that has a very small device that is called thermocoagulation. And if a patient turns out to be positive and then under inspection is noted to have early cancer, we can treat that patient in 20 seconds. So that's really rewarding when you can say, I think you're going to be okay. Now we need to see you back in About a year or so. But before this, those patients, they were never diagnosed until they had advanced cancer. And by that time they were usually incurable. And, you know, these women were the backbone of the family. They were taking care of the children. Sometimes the economy, I should say Australia has pretty much eliminated cervical cancer because they've identified this as a goal.
Naila Boudu
How has Australia been able to achieve that? Is that from vaccines or is that from a combination of vaccines and aggressive screening? How are you hoping to do that in other countries?
Dr. Richard Godfrey
Important question and simple answer is it's both. You have to have both. The vaccine for young people, mostly girls, that are getting treated, and that needs to be between ages 9 and 13, theoretically, before any sexual activity, which is where this virus in general always is transferred. So if you can give the vaccine before any exposure to HPV, it is like 97% effective to prevent cervical cancer. But that doesn't do anything for the women today, the 660,000 women every year that are getting cervical cancer. So they need screening. And that would be the ages 30 to 60 that we focus on. It takes a virus upwards of 20 years to actually be present before it will go through the transformation and mutation to become a cancer. So if we can catch that in the earlier stages, which would be women 30 to 60, that then takes care of the other half of the problem. So you need both, really. It's a little bit like Covid when we isolated people. Well, our goal was to get herd immunity, and I think we want to try to do something similar with cervical cancer.
Naila Boudu
How close are we to doing that in the US with the vaccine? And what would you like to see in other countries?
Dr. Richard Godfrey
The goal of the World Health Organization is to get 90% of people vaccinated, 70% of people screened, and 90% of people who have cervical cancer treated for that in the United States because of the Pap smear. The number that's identified by the WHO and in general is 4 women per 100,000. If you can get down to that low level, then you. You basically are achieving enough control that you can approach the herd immunity. You might have heard of Isabel Scarenci. She's in Birmingham, Alabama, and she realized, hey, here we are in the United States. We actually have areas where there's a lot of cervical cancer. So she said, let's take that on. And she's been written up by the Wall Street Journal. She gave a great presentation in Calgary at our international convention. But Isabel, I think, is one of the Rotary leaders right now, and she started in Birmingham, Alabama, Then she went to Sri Lanka and Sri Lanka is almost free of cervical cancer. Now. How did she do that? Well, she told us, as Rotarians, you have to get all sectors of your country or your community involved. So that means you got to go through the government, the schools, the churches, all the basic leaders of the society have to accept it as doable and worthwhile to do. And she did that in Sri Lanka and we're on a goal to do that everywhere.
Naila Boudu
So Bolivia has the highest rate of cervical cancer in South America. Can you tell me about how your work with Rotary there has gone through what you were just describing?
Dr. Richard Godfrey
Naila, you really should come to Bolivia because if you do,
Naila Boudu
if Rotary will have me, I will come with you to Bolivia.
Dr. Richard Godfrey
We'll definitely invite you and you'll experience. They are very passionate and emotional country and they're so much fun to be with. But the long and the short is five Rotary clubs, which included Chicago, Seattle, Oakland, San Francisco and Los Angeles, said, hey, we want to work with this one Rotary group in Bolivia. It's called Urbare Rotary. Well, interestingly, Bolivia is probably one of the hardest countries to introduce this screening and vaccine for a number of reasons. Primarily, you know, the economic situation was very difficult. But we did get a three year global grant. I've been down there now working for around three years and it involved setting up the equipment, finding a hospital, getting the right setting, but it's actually going very, very well. The Rotary group down there are passionate. They go on the radio, they go on tv, they'll let people know. So we're able to do campaigns, bring in a lot of people. And we're expanding now to different parts of Bolivia. We'll be going to Sucre, which is the oldest city in Bolivia. We'll be going to La Paz, the one that's high up in the mountains, around 13,000ft. And I see Rotary getting involved all over that country.
Podcast Narrator
Now, can you tell me a little
Naila Boudu
bit more about your current work in Africa and particularly some of the impact that's having throughout different countries.
Dr. Richard Godfrey
Let me tell you, Naila, about Kenya. I first went there in 2006 to join a group of people to provide surgery and healthcare there. But we went with Pink. And when we started in 2006, literally the camps would be flooded by more than a thousand patients that had never had any healthcare. And in the hospital where we did surgery, we saw very advanced cancers. One day I was outside the hospital and I saw a young woman who was bent over in pain. She was with her husband and her husband walked over and said, are you a doctor? I had a coat on, so of course it looked like I was. And I said, sure. And he says, well, you know, my wife has this pain that's uncontrollable and she's only 28 years old and we have five children and we don't know what to do. I realized at that time there was really only one thing that could be offered, which would be hospice care and morphine. So we felt like we should do more in that part of Kenya. We built a hospital. Two years ago I went to that hospital and we set up this training that we've been talking about with a machine that can do DNA HPV training. So now we can treat women that come in, as I mentioned, in 20 seconds with the thermocoagulation. So it's incredibly wonderful to be able to do that. Africa has so many countries that if, if anything, have worse problems with cervical cancer even than Kenya. There's a woman named Barbara in Zimbabwe who's a Rotarian. She's the head of a Rotary Club and she was diagnosed at age 30. She had a negative Pap smear and thought everything was fine, but she decided to have another one while she was in the hospital and was found to be positive. And the long and the short is this woman went through 14 operations. And after 14 operations, eventually she was led to a hysterectomy. Her husband wouldn't let her have a hysterectomy because then she couldn't have children. But she was finally treated. By that time, she lost half of her bladder, she had an ostomy, and she's now gone on to form a non profit group called teal. And she offers women throughout Zimbabwe a chance to be screened and diagnosed and treated before they get advanced cancer. So Barbara to me is an example of a woman that never gives up. And how could you be a better Rotarian? She inspires me to do the work we do throughout Africa.
Naila Boudu
Can you tell me more about what kind of camps you're talking about?
Dr. Richard Godfrey
Sure. Western Kenya, when we first started in 2006, had very little availability except in the town of Kisumu, which is near Lake Victoria. So that's where we started our work and some of the folks in those groups that were doctors. A friend of mine who is an oncologist named Gail Wagner said, well, we can't just keep coming and doing these camps. You need a hospital. So with a very dynamic fellow who came out of the Kibera slums and spent all his honeymoon Dowry to provide help to people in the Kibera slums, said, well, come to my village and help me to build a hospital. And that all started around 2006. By 2012, we'd built a hospital. It's now a state of the art hospital. And Rotary has done many of the projects to make that hospital successful. We took out a 40 foot container and $100,000 of medical supplies. And as I mentioned, I go out there now every year to work in this clinic. I didn't do surgery anymore. Now I work in the laboratory doing pipetting.
Naila Boudu
Because HPV is a sexually transmitted disease, does that pose cultural barriers? Are there difficult conversations people don't want to have around cervical cancer or screening,
Dr. Richard Godfrey
depending on which country, including the United States. There's a lot of vaccine hesitancy here in the United States. One of the big areas actually was Japan. Interestingly, Japan had made a lot of progress with vaccinations. And then the folks that don't trust the vaccine who feel like, well, maybe it's going to create promiscuous behavior, they went on social media, they almost stopped all the vaccination going on in Japan. When the government realized that, they said, wow, we better do something to have people understand better the science. The studies that have been done to look at the impact of the vaccine in in fact show that it does not cause promiscuity, it just prevents people from ever experiencing a horrible cancer in their lifetime. So that Japan came back with good social media and they're back on board and the vaccination's working well. Countries like Bolivia and Guatemala, some of it is really the cost. Who can afford the vaccine? You know, the vaccine here in the United States can cost easily more than $100. So we work with organizations like Gavi that can bring that price down to four or five dollars and I think that price will continue to go lower. So there's the issues of cost, there's the issues of who's going to give the vaccine and then there's the issue of do people trust it. So if you go into a Mayan community, they're not used to all these vaccines. They're not sure what you're up and about to. That's also true in Kenya and other countries. But I think that's where Rotary has an important role. Think about how we've worked with polio. There was a lot of mistrust. And to reach within a culture really requires understanding the culture and it requires working with the outreach communities so that they do the work. Now I can go down to Bolivia or Guatemala and use my less than perfect Spanish. But that will never be the same as if a midwife who speaks all the Mayan dialects is going to be able to communicate with the people in those villages in those areas.
Naila Boudu
At the beginning of this conversation, we were talking about the evolution of healthcare and medicine, and we started talking about the incredible advances we've seen in immunotherapy. But I wanted to also ask you about AI as you see genetic testing, AI, all of this advancing, particularly when it comes to cervical cancer. How do you see AI Further scientific advances playing a role in this?
Dr. Richard Godfrey
I think in many ways in medicine in America, we still have to go back to the basics. AI is incredibly powerful. It's going to change a lot of our social approach to medicine and other areas. But at the same time, imagine if you're a doctor or the patient and you have to make a communication that you've just been diagnosed with a cancer. I can't imagine AI being able to do that in the same way that a real physician can. Now, to answer your question, the technology, by the way, is evolving very quickly. Think back with COVID Where we started off, you had to go to the hospital, get tested, and go home and wait for a couple of days. And they did that difficult swab routine through your nose.
Naila Boudu
I actually described it as like a pap smear for your nose. Just so you know.
Dr. Richard Godfrey
Yeah. And then within, you know, less than two years, you could go to your local pharmacy, Walgreens or cvs, and buy a kit, take it home, and know the results in 15 minutes. That's how quick that technology advanced with that particular virus. So the same is happening with the HPV virus. In fact, the company that I've been working with is designing a small handheld device where you can go anywhere in the world and get the results in 15 minutes and say, guess what? You're free of disease. Or we need to get you in to go through an exam. So that's an example of technology. But I also want to point out that in the larger scheme of things, like in the United States, we need primary care for people to know that it's important to have the test done in the first place. And that's prevention. That's level three or primary care approach to medicine, which is different from the actual treatment where we use, I mentioned the thermocoagulation, or even more expensive and difficult is when someone has aggressive advanced cervical cancer. Now you have to go to the hospital. You need surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, very, very expensive. To do devastating to the family. And imagine how devastating for people that don't have health insurance. So I think we've got to find affordable medicine in the United States. And one of the ways to do that is through primary care and also just education. I'm so pleased to be able to talk with you now about things that I think all Rotarians should know about. You know, really, I never was a gynecologist, and I didn't work in cervical cancer. I work with many other types. But I see how important it is for each of us to understand the immune system, to know what we can do personally. And that's all primary care. That's not AI. That's what we know as individuals within our lifetime. Well, what are our risk factors? What are we doing wrong, or what can we do better? What should we eat? You know, all the those factors that come into that field.
Naila Boudu
Why is that screening test that you've been describing not more widely available in the US Why are so many women still doing pap smears?
Dr. Richard Godfrey
Well, it is now becoming widely available. You know, if you think about all the new technologies in medicine, they don't happen overnight. They take years to get introduced. So now most hospitals that I know of in California do offer the DNA tests, and they offer both the pap smear and DNA tests. So it doesn't happen overnight. It takes several years to make that transition of a way that you've provided medicine.
Naila Boudu
I do want to go back, though, to your broader point. First, I just want to ask, as so many Americans are doing genetic testing, so many things are much more available for people. How do you think people should be thinking about preventative things that they should be doing for cancer? Do you think that genetic testing is actually something that helps people or, like, in the sense of living a healthier lifestyle? I'm just saying, just curious your thoughts on that.
Dr. Richard Godfrey
I do think so, although I haven't really done it myself. But I can tell you that many different parts of cancer work, for example, breast cancer, we use genetic testing. And within each of us as individuals, particularly with the evolution of AI, we're going to have the ability to see the whole human genome. We can take individual genomes, and with AI, we can literally tell people what their risk factors may be. So I think that's going to be very, very important. How do you make that available, and who should you make it available to? I like that quotation from Einstein. You know, he once said science without religion is lame, but religion without science is blind. You need both. You really need a social approach that offers these new technologies in an affordable way to everyone. So I think it's a new frontier. We're entering into it. Coming back to your early question, there are a lot of books that are coming out now and you see every day in newspapers and articles about how to be healthy. And some people simplify it. It's not that hard. There's five things you need exercise, you need diet, you need good sleep, you need good mental health. That's where Rotary comes in. Because we know within Rotary you have great friendships and that promotes your mental health. And we need pharmacy. A lot of us do need to be on medications. I mean, speaking of technology, we're in this now. GLP1, new drugs, WeGovy and many of the others that are going to take on this issue of 40% of America has obesity. And. And what are we going to do? Because obesity leads to all these other chronic diseases. So we'll see how that impacts. And who has the availability of the new drugs.
Naila Boudu
You actually have written books, including a book about Watergate, as well as a newer hobby of yours, which is around beekeeping.
Podcast Narrator
Where do you find the time to write all of these books?
Naila Boudu
And you have, it seems like, lots of different interests.
Dr. Richard Godfrey
Oh, I didn't really start medical school till I was 30, so I wrote a couple of novels. We talked a little bit about Africa. I got involved in beekeeping there. We have a Rotary project where we work with a very interesting hunting, foraging tribe known as the Ogiak tribe. But I wanted to write about the bees. Well, actually, I wanted to write about some extraordinary women within Africa. So the book's called African Tales of Motherhood and Wild Bees. And in the process of writing the book, I met the grandmother of Barack Obama. His grandmother lived near where our hospital was, so she asked me to take down some bees that were high up in a mango tree. And this book is partly the story of those bees, but it's also about extraordinary women such as Mama Sarah and Wangari Maathai, who got the Nobel Prize for environment in Kenya. She planted 10 million trees in Africa. So that's a nonfiction book. The fiction stories are about ambulances and Washington, so you might find them interesting. I started off my career as an ambulance driver after I left the Peace Corps, and that's how I got into medicine.
Naila Boudu
I don't want to end without mentioning your forthcoming book, Medical Moonshots. What prompted this book?
Dr. Richard Godfrey
Sure. When I retired as an active surgical oncologist, I kept all the records from so many patients that I Took care of that, had advanced melanoma. And many of them were some of my closest friends, people that I really came to love. And so when I went back and looked at the research that I did and the friendships that I developed, I thought, I have to tell these stories. So I started writing the stories of many of these people that I knew. I then sort of moved beyond melanoma to the four other areas that I thought were very preventable or treatable or important cancers to understand. So I went into, as you know, cervical cancer. Prostate cancer is a fascinating, fascinating area. And melanoma sort of helped me to realize, oh, my gosh, I probably have prostate cancer, as do most men, 40% do, and they never know it, but it's the immune system that controls it. So I went on to write. I knew many doctors that had breast cancer, so I wrote their stories, and I wrote about colorectal cancer. So those were the five areas that I wanted to tell, the stories of patients that I knew. And for me, they were powerful stories.
Naila Boudu
You talk about the idea of a home squared solution where people look at their own habits and risk patterns. How would you advise people to go about doing that?
Dr. Richard Godfrey
Obviously, it's important if you have a family history, but more so, through all the habits you develop in living on this planet, you look at the ones that really could be harmful. In my case, I grew up in a family that did a lot of drinking. I'm a baby boomer, so everybody smoked back in those days. There are so many other things you can look at. And going back to those five critical areas that I mentioned, you look back at your habits. Do you sleep well? Do you work too much? Is your life too stressful? What can you do? And so home squared, it's a concept that actually comes from Kenya, where people often live in Nairobi, but they still have their home village where they came from. And so they go back and they visit with their older family, and they visit where they grew up and when they lived in an environment where they had to do a lot of hard work and agriculture. And they think back, what did I do back then that made me healthy versus what do I do now? Living in the big city, having a stressful life, maybe not doing all the things that I could to be as healthy as when I was living in that old home squared. So I think all of us have a home squared, which is going back to your childhood and habits that you developed. And some of those habits are good and some can be bad. I think what I really emphasize for myself is that even though some people feel that healthcare and health should be a right, it's also responsibility. And knowing your own immune system is your responsibility. Nobody can know it as well as you do. So I encourage that. We really can win this war with cancer. I really think we'll be able to do it with cervical cancer and hopefully with time. And, you know, remember going back to Richard Nixon and then President Biden, we identified this war on cancer. But it's really more than just a war. It's a quest. It's a quest for a healthy society and to be healthy ourselves.
Naila Boudu
Dr. Richard Godfrey, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us. I appreciate it.
Dr. Richard Godfrey
I want to say thank you for this opportunity.
Podcast Producer
This episode of the Rotary Voices Podcast was produced by JP Swenson and edited by Wen Huang. Nylabudu was our host production by Yoo Soo Kim. If you enjoyed the show, please rate us five stars on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and share it with your friends. The Rotary Voices Podcast is a production of Rotary Magazine, the official monthly publication of Rotary International. Thanks for listening.
Date: May 19, 2026
Host: Naila Boudu
Guest: Dr. Richard Godfrey, Rotarian, surgical oncologist, author
Episode Theme:
Exploring the revolution in cervical cancer prevention and treatment worldwide, highlighting Rotary’s leadership, Dr. Godfrey’s personal journey, and practical advice for individual cancer prevention.
This episode spotlights global efforts to eliminate cervical cancer—currently the fourth most common cancer among women—through vaccination, advanced screening technologies, and coordinated action among Rotary clubs. Dr. Richard Godfrey, whose career spans decades and continents, shares insights from his fieldwork, innovations in detection and treatment, and the vital role of Rotary and community engagement. The discussion also covers broader issues of cancer prevention and health responsibility.
Dr. Godfrey’s interest in medicine was sparked by personal family experience with cancer.
Initially an aspiring writer, he switched career paths later in life, eventually specializing in surgical oncology.
He joined Rotary via an insistent patient, leading to transformative involvement in international medical work:
“Like many Rotarians, it ended up being a life changing experience.” (02:38, Dr. Godfrey)
His club helped fund the only orthopedic surgeon in Western Kenya—a milestone that steered Dr. Godfrey toward international chair positions and leadership on Rotary-funded projects.
“I've never felt so much purpose and being part of such a larger group.” (03:54, Dr. Godfrey)
“It's a horrendous, horrible cancer to suffer and it's entirely preventable.” (05:18, Dr. Godfrey)
Guatemala as Case Study:
Cost and Accessibility:
“You can screen a patient for $6 and give her the results...in the same day. You can also treat that patient.” (10:30, Dr. Godfrey)
“All sectors of your country or your community [must] accept it as doable and worthwhile...” (13:50, Dr. Godfrey, paraphrasing Scarenci)
“They are very passionate and emotional country and they're so much fun to be with...The Rotary group down there are passionate...they go on radio, they go on TV, they'll let people know.” (15:04, Dr. Godfrey)
“Now we can treat women that come in...in 20 seconds with the thermocoagulation.” (17:48, Dr. Godfrey)
“Barbara...is an example of a woman that never gives up. And how could you be a better Rotarian? She inspires me to do the work we do throughout Africa.” (18:47, Dr. Godfrey)
“To reach within a culture really requires understanding the culture and it requires working with the outreach communities so that they do the work.” (21:44, Dr. Godfrey)
“I can't imagine AI being able to do that in the same way that a real physician can.” (23:13, Dr. Godfrey)
“Healthcare and health should be a right, [but] it's also responsibility. And knowing your own immune system is your responsibility. Nobody can know it as well as you do.” (33:22, Dr. Godfrey)
This episode of Rotary Voices is a compelling exploration of how innovations in cervical cancer prevention—driven by community leadership, technology, and global collaboration—are poised to save millions of lives. Dr. Godfrey’s personal stories and pragmatic advice emphasize that the fight against cancer is both a societal quest and an individual responsibility. Rotary’s impact in spreading screening and vaccination is front and center, offering a powerful blueprint for global health transformation.