A Legacy of the Heart: ‘Cancer Care is All I Ever Wanted to Do,’ Veteran Surgery Professor Says

Martin Fleming, MD, leads the Division of Surgical Oncology at UT Health Sciences. For Dr. Fleming, a dedicated clinician and teacher, cancer care is a family affair.

Martin Fleming, MD, chief of the Division of Surgical Oncology in the College of Medicine at UT Health Sciences, remembers going door-to-door in Memphis as early as age 6 or 7 with his mother, a survivor of osteogenic carcinoma, to collect money for the American Cancer Society.

His father, the late Irvin D. Fleming, MD, also a Memphis surgeon and longtime UT Health Scienced professor of surgery, was a pioneer in cancer care and research and spent more than 50 years as a volunteer with the American Cancer Society, serving as its international president in the 1990s.

His son, Andrew Fleming, MD, one of the chief surgery residents at the College of Medicine, is graduating tonight and will soon move to Tampa, Florida, to begin a surgical oncology fellowship at Moffitt Cancer Center.

You could say cancer care is a legacy of the heart for all three of these UT Health Science Center College of Medicine alums.

"Cancer care is really all I have ever wanted to do," Dr. Martin Fleming says.

Dr. Fleming's father, the late Irvin D. Fleming, MD, left, was also a Memphis surgeon, longtime UT Health Sciences professor of surgery, and a pioneer in cancer care and research.

Passion into Practice

A 1986 graduate of the College of Medicine, Dr. Fleming is a nationally recognized authority on the treatment of melanoma, sarcoma, and breast cancer. He completed residency training at the University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas and a surgical oncology fellowship at the Medical College of Virginia. He returned to UT Health Sciences as an adjunct volunteer faculty member in 1993 and joined the faculty full time in 2001.

Since then, he has made a major contribution in bringing the highest level of cancer care, state-of-the-art research, and treatment options to the people of Memphis and the Mid-South.

He established and leads the Division of Surgical Oncology, which has experienced robust growth and includes nine surgical oncologists. Dr. Fleming is also among the faculty physicians, who under the strong leadership of David Shibata, MD, chair of the Department of Surgery, established and operate the Regional One Health (ROH) Cancer Care Program, a collaboration between the university and its clinical partner ROH. Dr. Fleming chairs the program's Cancer Committee, which links all providers who care for cancer in the hospital.

"It's really important to have a multidisciplinary approach to each case," he says. This would include medical oncology, surgical oncology, radiation oncology, and other services.

In 2025, the Regional One Health Cancer Care Program earned accreditation as an Academic Comprehensive Cancer Program from the Commission on Cancer, a national organization that recognizes hospital oncology programs that meet the highest standards of patient care.

Accreditation requires many national standards that include a robust tumor board, extensive tracking of screening efforts, and multidisciplinary presentation of cases. Dr. Fleming, along with oncology program accreditation manager Leslie Stroud, led the initiative.

"One of our main opportunities in our partnership with Regional One Health is impacting the gaps in cancer care across all the populations of Memphis," he says. "It gives us a unique opportunity to make a difference in the health care in our city."

Dr. Fleming says accreditation is pivotal to the program. "It demonstrates excellence in cancer care and shows that we offer state-of-the art, multidisciplinary care for all our patients. It puts us on the map as a place that's doing it right."

Teaching the Next Generation

Teaching is equally as important as patient care to Dr. Fleming. In his view, the two go hand in hand.

"One of the things I really enjoy is having the opportunity to participate in teaching students, residents, and surgical oncology fellows in the care of cancer patients," he says.

"When we train and teach learners - students, residents, and fellows - at UT Health Sciences, we have an opportunity to keep them here in Tennessee."

- Dr. Martin Fleming

"One of my first initiatives when I started the Division of Surgical Oncology was to start the process of having a surgical oncology fellowship," he continues. UT Health Sciences received approval for its fellowship in 2017 and is among 34 accredited surgical oncology fellowships in the U.S. "I thought it important that we have one."

In addition to instructing surgical oncology fellows and residents on their surgical oncology rotations, Dr. Fleming is the clerkship director, teaching third-year medical students about surgery.

"This is important because our patients deserve the best cancer care we can possibly provide them and to be cared for by physicians who have been trained specifically in that," he says. "Having people who have chosen cancer care as their career path can, and does, transform the care we provide in Memphis and Tennessee."

Sometimes, his teaching even allows him to cross paths with his son in the OR, where the two have worked together.

Dr. Fleming serves as a clerkship director, teaching third-year medical students about surgery. He is shown at orientation last fall.

All About Learning

Dr. Fleming is a believer in the statistics that indicate roughly 60% of medical residents stay in the state or region where they trained.

"When we train and teach learners - students, residents, and fellows - at UT Health Sciences, we have an opportunity to keep them here."

Chelsea Olson, MD, is proof of that. She is from Colorado, went to medical school in Virginia at Virginia Commonwealth University, and trained in general surgery at the University of South Alabama. She did her surgical oncology fellowship at UT Health Sciences, and recently joined the Division of Surgical Oncology as an assistant professor.

"Dr. Fleming interviewed me, and the whole program was just very welcoming, so I made it my top choice," she says. "Sometimes when you match into a place, it's not what you think, but it pretty much lived up to all the expectations I had when I was interviewing, and I was excited to start the fellowship, especially with Dr. Fleming leading it."

She says Dr. Fleming is careful to ensure everyone involved in a case has a role.

"He's always making sure that people are involved in his cases and they're learning something," Dr. Olson says. "And the environment at UT Health Sciences is all about learning, and I couldn't help but fall in love with that."

This story was initially featured in the winter issue of Medicine magazine.