Medical oncologist with CARTI

LITTLE ROCK--Thomas B. Sneed, a medical oncologist with CARTI, had several careers before entering the field of medicine. He was a computer programmer, a restaurant manager in New Orleans, and taught ballroom dance before taking a job as a research technologist at the University of Arkansas.

While working in medical research, he also did hospice volunteer work. That was when he decided to make medicine his life’s work. After graduating from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), Sneed trained at the Portland Program for Internal Medicine, and then did a fellowship at the MD Anderson Cancer Center for Oncology/Hematology.

It wasn’t hard to decide where he wanted to end up practicing medicine. A native of North Little Rock, he decided to come home where he has now been in practice 15 years, joining CARTI a year and a half ago.

In addition to seeing patients in Little Rock, Sneed travels to Russellville three days a week and Conway one day a week. Going where the patients are rather than expecting them to travel to him is just one reason why Sneed’s patients say over and over again what a great doctor he is.

“Many cancer patients are not wealthy, and can’t afford to travel across the state,” Sneed said. “If you are feeling bad from dealing with a disease, you don’t want drive 150 miles if you can help it.”

Sneed has seen dramatic improvements in cancer treatments, especially in certain kinds of malignancies, in recent years.

“There has even been progress in lung cancer, which was virtually unthinkable in the past,” Sneed said. “The improvements in cancer treatments are largely due to the exploration of genome of a cancer cell, which can help us can target abnormal genes to retard the growth or destroy the cancer cell. All of this has been made possible by technology that just came into being in the 1980s and is now being fully exploited.

Sneed understands how frightening and difficult it is to be facing cancer. He doesn’t give patients unrealistic expectations, but he does encourage them to have hope.

“If you have hope, then you have a reason to go forward and attack the disease,” Sneed said. “I think in order to be a good doctor you have to be a human being first. You must be willing to open yourself up to feeling emotions. You are there to help the patient and part of that is treating the patient like a human being. Human beings have other desires than to just live another day. They want to live and they want to get better, but they also want people to understand they have things they want to accomplish that are important to them.”

Sneed said one of the reasons he chose oncology is that when people are faced with life-threatening illnesses, they often become more completely what they were before.

“Most people are good people, and most people become better people when faced with a life-threatening situation,” he said. “I basically believe people are good. Given an opportunity to rise to the occasion, almost all of them do.”

Sneed has found that the attitudes of cancer patients can greatly influence healing. “People who are able to get up in the morning and have a reason to be alive are more likely to tolerate therapy and have a chance to get better,” he said. “I encourage my patients to live, and not just simply exist.”

The improvements in cancer treatment include a revolution in the management of the side effects of chemotherapy.

“Medications we have now to manage the side effects of chemo are extraordinary,” he said. “People come in who remember how horrible it was 25 years ago. Now we have medications that can prevent nausea. Cancer treatments have gotten more specific. We are not condemned to making people super sick and maybe killing the cancer. We are able to specifically target cancer cells in a way we were not able to do before. There are new opportunities for treatment every day that will make patients live longer and better.”

Another development that Sneed is excited about, is the development of CARTI across the state and how that has helped individual practitioners and patients.

“CARTI allows physicians to have the opportunity to enroll patients in clinical trials, and to develop advanced techniques for therapy and diagnosis that wouldn’t be there if I was out alone in the community,” Sneed said.

He checks every day on the computer to see progress at the new CARTI Cancer Center facility under construction in Little Rock.

“We are excited about the opportunities that are coming up with the new CARTI Cancer Center.”

Sneed has advice for family medicine doctors regarding patients who have cancer: “Don’t assume there is nothing better to offer your patients without inquiring. There are many exciting things happening in our subspecialty that I couldn’t have guessed about 15 years ago.”

A good example of that is recent proof that low dose CT scans are beneficial for detecting lung cancer very early at a stage when treatment is more likely to be successful.

Sneed describes himself as “an Arkansas boy who came back home to practice medicine doing something he loves.” He said his family is very important to him, but they complain they rarely see him.

Sneed is a history lover, particularly ancient Roman history, and he also appreciates art of all kinds. When he travels, the first thing he does is visit famous museums. While he has been to many museums both in the U.S. and abroad, one of his favorites is right here in Arkansas.

“Crystal Bridges is one of the best museums I’ve ever been to,” he said.