Hematologist and medical oncologist Travis Cox, M.D., is now seeing patients at Texas Oncology–Round Rock North and Harker Heights locations. Dr. Cox shares how his passion for cancer care began and what he looks forward to in the field.
What inspired you to specialize in cancer care?
Every Christmas when I was a child, we would visit my mom’s side of the family in Iowa and stop by my grandfather’s grave. I was an inquisitive child, too young to realize we were in a cemetery, and one year I asked my mother and her sisters why they would always cry when we visited this place. They told me my grandfather had died of leukemia, and that he was among the first patients to have been treated at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center for the condition. After an undoubtedly difficult conversation for my parents to have with someone who hadn’t even finished pre-K, I learned what cancer was. That Christmas, my gift to my mother was a promise that no one would have to feel the pain and sadness she and her family experienced every year in that cemetery – I would dedicate my life to treating and preventing cancer.
I look forward to the development of newer, more effective therapies with which we can continue to provide excellent care to our patients with even less toxicity."
What are you most looking forward to as cancer treatment continues to evolve?
We have seen amazing advancement in cancer therapeutics in the last 10 years. Particularly with targeted small molecule inhibitors and immunotherapy agents such as checkpoint inhibitors and CAR-T therapy. These have had remarkable benefit for our patients, offering renewed hope and survival benefit with meaningful quality of life. I look forward to the development of newer, more effective therapies with which we can continue to provide excellent care to our patients with even less toxicity.
What do you want your patients to know about you?
I will always do what is best for my patients. I will treat you with the same respect, dignity, and attention as I would my own family.
If you could have one superpower, what would it be?
It would definitely be the ability to see and change the future – including the steps needed to make those changes happen. It’s the superpower my patients most frequently hope I have, and I believe it would benefit humanity more than any other superpower could.