Hi Pat,
Dr. Lamm has been a great friend to our group, this website and me since the first time we wrote to him in '98 for input. He always answers questions-quite rare for such a world renowned expert.
Mark Schoenberg is not only a brilliant oncologist but an incredibly kind person too, I don't know how he manages to spread himself so thin. You're right that the experts in bladder cancer know each other and that's because it's quite a small handful of experts that specialize in this field of urology. All the money is in prostate cancer. Experts in bladder cancer receive very little funding for their research and have trouble keeping their labs open, it's actually terrible. I'm happy to say it's improving, though. There are triple the number of clinical trials for bladder cancer now, than when my sister was dxed in '98. But still only a fraction of the number of trials that are being conducted on behalf of other cancers (prostate, breast, lung and colon being way up there). Considering that this is NOT a rare cancer, it's awful.
Dr. Schoenberg wrote the first book for blc patients in '99, and has been an advisor to WebCafe since then. When the first American foundation for blc got off the ground in '05(BCAN.org) he became their advisor as well. He's one of the most patient-friendly doctors I've ever met, along with Mike O'Donnel and Ashish Kamat, who are also on WebCafe's advisory board. All three of these men are tops in their field and it's an honor to know them.
Wendy