A Medical Oncologist at The Scarborough Hospital since 1975, Dr. Henry Krieger has seen many advances in the area of cancer treatment over the past three decades.

“I think treatment is becoming more targeted, more specific, as opposed to what we used to do, such as general chemotherapy,” he explains. “We’re also seeing more success in the cancers we treat, and we’re seeing more ability to treat certain cancers that we couldn’t treat even ten years ago.”

Dr. Krieger views TSH’s Oncology Clinic and the community it serves as unique.

“The tremendous diversity of the population we treat, where English is a second language to a large number of patients, does add a real challenge to the work we do,” he says. “But the important thing is that our patients are getting the treatment they need closer to home. Generally, people with cancer and receiving treatment feel unwell, and the closer they are and less travel they have to do for their treatment, the easier it is for them.

“We have a group of physicians who are caring about their patients, who are anxious to deliver the best quality of care, who practice evidence-based medicine. When we need the help of other specialists, we’re quite eager to seek that out as well,” Dr. Krieger adds. “Sometimes, colleagues ask me if I’m going to retire, and one of the reasons I haven’t really looked into it is that I still very much enjoy what I’m doing; I enjoy helping people. I also enjoy working at the hospital and have a great comfort level here. 

“Medicine is becoming more technical and less personal, but at our hospital, we treat patients as individuals who happen to have a disease called cancer.”

The father of two was born in Austria to Polish Jewish parents, and moved to Toronto when he was 20 months old. In his spare time, Dr. Krieger enjoys tennis, golf, reading and collecting wine. With four grandchildren under age 4, “I am lucky enough to have them close by and get to see a lot of them.”