The James P. Boland Memorial Lecture is an annual signature academic event of the West Virginia University School of Medicine Charleston Campus and CAMC Institute for Academic Medicine, honoring the life, leadership and lasting influence of James P. Boland, M.D., the longtime chair of the Department of Surgery. Established as a lectureship in his honor in 2008 and later renamed the James P. Boland Memorial Lecture following his death in 2011, the program brings a nationally recognized physician, surgeon or medical leader to Charleston each year to share expertise, advances and perspectives in medicine and surgery.
Dr. Boland came to Charleston in 1976 to lead the developing surgical residency program at Charleston Area Medical Center and spent the next 35 years helping build the department of surgery. A highly respected cardiothoracic surgeon, educator and lifelong scholar, he was known for his intellectual curiosity, commitment to teaching, collegial leadership and dedication to residents, students, colleagues and patients. Under his leadership, the department grew from a fledgling program into a major academic surgical department serving West Virginia and the region.
The annual lecture continues the values Dr. Boland championed throughout his career—lifelong learning, academic excellence, innovation, thoughtful discussion and mentorship. By welcoming distinguished national speakers to the Charleston Campus, the event provides medical students, residents, faculty and members of the medical community an opportunity to explore important developments in clinical care, surgical practice, research and medical education.
More than simply a visiting lecture, the event serves as an annual celebration of the academic culture Dr. Boland helped establish in Charleston. His philosophy of encouraging questions, discussion and continuous learning remains part of the campus culture, symbolized in part by the Hippocrates tree he donated to the campus in 2005, beneath which students continue to gather and study. Together with the James P. Boland, M.D., Department of Surgery Professorship, the Memorial Lecture ensures that his influence on surgical education and patient care continues for future generations of WVU physicians.
This year’s guest speaker lends a very special meaning to the annual event as Dr. Boland’s daughter Genevieve M. Boland, M.D., Ph.D., FACS, a nationally recognized surgical oncologist, cancer researcher and academic leader presents James P. Boland Memorial Lecture. Her career represents both a continuation and an evolution of an extraordinary family tradition in medicine. In September 2026, she became Chair of the Department of Surgery at the Medical College of Wisconsin and Surgeon-in-Chief at Froedtert Hospital, following more than a decade of distinguished clinical, scientific and leadership work at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
Her accomplishments place her among a new generation of surgeon-scientists working at the intersection of operative care, cancer biology and immunotherapy. Yet the roots of her career reach directly back to Charleston, West Virginia, and to her father, legendary cardiothoracic surgeon and educator James P. Boland, M.D.
Genevieve Boland grew up as the youngest of six children in a family where medicine, learning, art, travel and intellectual curiosity were part of everyday life. Her father was a cardiothoracic surgeon, while her mother, Kathy, was an artist. In a deeply personal essay titled Reverberation, published in The Pharos in 2013, Genevieve recalled growing up in a household filled with conversation, debate and opportunities to learn. She described childhood experiences shaped by her parents’ international travels and by stories of her father's medical work in places including Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Her own path eventually followed her father into surgery, although in a very different era of medicine. Boland earned both her M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Thomas Jefferson University, graduating cum laude and being elected to Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society. Her doctoral research was conducted at the National Institutes of Health. She then completed general surgery residency at Massachusetts General Hospital and advanced fellowship training in complex general surgical oncology and genomic medicine at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
At Massachusetts General Hospital and Mass General Brigham, Boland built an internationally respected career focused particularly on melanoma, immunotherapy, cancer genetics, tumor-immune interactions and translational cancer research. Her leadership positions included Vice Chair of Research for the Integrated Department of Surgery at Mass General Brigham, Section Head of Melanoma/Sarcoma Surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital, Surgical Director of the Termeer Center for Targeted Therapies, Director of the Surgical Oncology Research Laboratories and Director of the Therapeutic Intralesional Program.
Her research seeks to understand why some cancers respond to treatment while others become resistant and how discoveries in the laboratory can be translated into better therapies for patients. By 2026, she had authored or co-authored more than 115 peer-reviewed publications, while her research program had attracted support from the National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense, ARPA-H and other organizations. Her career has also been strongly devoted to mentoring medical students, residents, research fellows and young faculty members — another area in which her father's influence is particularly apparent.
The James P. Boland Legacy
James P. Boland, M.D., was one of the defining figures in the development of academic surgery in Charleston and throughout West Virginia. A Philadelphia native and graduate of Saint Joseph's University and Jefferson Medical College, Boland trained in general surgery at Graduate Hospital in Philadelphia and in cardiothoracic surgery at Parkland Hospital in Dallas. During his time at Parkland, he participated in the care of Texas Gov. John Connally following the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He later traveled internationally with Project HOPE before coming to West Virginia.
Boland arrived at the WVU School of Medicine Charleston Campus in 1976 to lead what was then a developing surgical residency program. At the time, he was the campus's only full-time surgical faculty member. Over the next 35 years, he helped transform the program into a major center for surgical education, building a culture based on scholarship, collegiality, service, humility and uncompromising standards of patient care.
His influence reached well beyond the operating room. Former residents remembered a teacher who led by example, challenged physicians to think, and took genuine interest in their development. WVU Charleston surgery chair Dr. Bryan Richmond has said that Boland's influence on generations of physicians remains embedded in the culture of the department. The annual James P. Boland Memorial Lecture, established in his honor, continues to bring nationally prominent surgeons and physicians to Charleston, while an endowed James P. Boland, M.D., Department of Surgery Professorship supports teaching, research and service.
Father and Daughter
The connection between James and Genevieve Boland was much deeper than their shared profession. Surgery became a language they shared.
During Genevieve's surgical training at Harvard, her father reportedly delighted in receiving her telephone calls describing the operations she had performed and the things she was learning. Although separated by generations, they could discuss surgery as colleagues as well as father and daughter.
Importantly, James Boland did not expect his daughter simply to practice medicine as he had practiced it. Genevieve has written that one of the qualities she respected most in her father was his willingness to embrace the continual evolution of medicine. Rather than resisting new technology, changing techniques or a new culture in surgical training, he was excited by them and encouraged his daughter to participate fully in the medicine of her own generation.
That relationship makes their careers particularly compelling. James Boland came of age during the pioneering era of modern cardiac surgery, when innovations such as the heart-lung machine were transforming what surgeons could accomplish. Genevieve Boland has come of age during another revolution — one driven by genomics, immunotherapy, cellular therapy, molecular profiling and precision cancer treatment.
Both became surgeons during periods when the boundaries of medicine were rapidly expanding.
There is another important parallel. James Boland was not remembered merely for technical excellence. His enduring legacy rests equally on the people he trained, the program he built and the values he instilled. Genevieve Boland's career has similarly developed beyond individual clinical accomplishments to encompass research leadership, mentorship, program building and the education of future surgeon-scientists.
In her reflections about her father, she described him as a devoted advocate who encouraged her to chart her own course while remembering that a physician's talents ultimately should be used in service to others. That philosophy perhaps provides the clearest connection between their two careers.
A Legacy That Continues
When James P. Boland died in 2011, he left behind far more than a record of operations performed or positions held. He left generations of surgeons, an academic department whose culture he helped establish and a philosophy of surgical education that continues at the WVU School of Medicine Charleston Campus.
Genevieve Boland has carried that legacy onto a national stage while making it distinctly her own. Where her father helped build an academic surgery program in West Virginia, she has emerged as a leader in one of the most sophisticated areas of contemporary cancer surgery and research. Where he trained generations of surgeons, she now mentors the surgeon-scientists who will shape the next era of medicine.
Her appointment as Chair of Surgery at the Medical College of Wisconsin in 2026 represents a particularly meaningful chapter in that story. More than half a century after James Boland began building his reputation as a surgeon, teacher and department leader, his daughter now leads a major academic department of surgery herself.
The careers of James P. Boland, M.D., and Genevieve M. Boland, M.D., Ph.D., therefore form more than a remarkable father-daughter story. Together they span two generations of American surgery — from the formative years of cardiothoracic surgery to the modern age of precision oncology and immunotherapy — connected by a common belief in learning, innovation, mentorship, compassion and service.
And for the WVU School of Medicine Charleston Campus, Genevieve Boland remains a particularly meaningful part of the James P. Boland story: a daughter who inherited her father's love of surgery, absorbed the values he taught, and then carried those values into a new century of medicine.