“Why aren’t you a doctor?”
As a child, that’s the question Kristin Higgins, M.D., used to ask her mother — a nurse who often came home with stories about the doctors she worked with.
Her mother gave vague answers like, “That’s not the way the world works.”
Only later did Dr. Higgins understand. Her mother, one of 11 children, grew up poor on a farm in Nebraska. She managed to put herself through nursing school, but medical school was an impossible dream.
At an early age, though, Dr. Higgins made up her mind to become a doctor. Later, when she was in college, her grandfather was diagnosed with small cell lung cancer, which would eventually become her area of clinical research expertise.
Those life experiences shaped the physician she is today. She developed an international reputation as a lung cancer expert at Emory University, and in January 2024 she was named chief clinical officer of City of Hope Cancer Center Atlanta.
She brings to her work a remarkable set of skills as a physician, researcher and leader with a very clear vision — providing advanced cancer care to the underserved populations in the southeastern United States.
A Caring and Compassionate Physician
As a physician, Dr. Higgins knows the importance of a personal connection with her patients — something that also comes from her own life experience.
“When my granddad had lung cancer, I remember my grandma complaining to me about how his doctors were so impersonal, how they had no bedside manner and didn’t give him enough information,” she said. “That’s why I take care to explain things to patients, help them see the path forward and try to relieve some anxiety in a very stressful situation.”
In fact, caring for someone during an illness has always come naturally to her. When she was just 12, before there were effective treatments for AIDS, a close relative contracted the disease. Even when he was no longer able to speak, she would sit with him, talking and holding his hand. She even wrote a poem about his life that she read to him.
Dr. Higgins combines this personal understanding of her patients’ needs with the most effective treatments and technologies available.
As a radiation oncologist, her expertise includes advanced radiation therapy delivery technologies, such as stereotactic body radiation therapy, as well as combining radiation with novel systemic agents. Her research also includes expanding indications for radiation, especially in the metastatic setting.
“Metastatic cancers have typically been treated with drug therapies alone,” she said. “But studies now show that using stereotactic radiation in combination with targeted treatments and immunotherapies can get rid of the resistant tumor cells and help patients live longer.”
Her own research — she’s published more than 150 peer-reviewed papers — is furthering our knowledge of such advances. One recent paper, for example, delivered at the 2024 meeting of ASTRO, the American Society of Radiation Oncologists, helped determine, in combination with a separate study, that in small cell lung cancer, stereotactic radiation with immunotherapy is not effective when given at the same time, but must be administered sequentially.
Transforming Cancer Care in the American Southeast
With her rural family roots, Dr. Higgins understands the needs of people in underserved areas, and she brings to City of Hope Cancer Center Atlanta a vision for transforming cancer care throughout the Southeast.
Under her leadership, people in Southern Georgia, as well as the Florida Panhandle, Alabama, South Carolina and North Carolina, can now access the advanced care City of Hope is known for.
“What excited me about City of Hope is that people in the Southeast have had to travel long distances in order to have access to top quality care,” she said. “We’re building programs from the ground up to provide that for them.”
She recently launched City of Hope’s acclaimed bone marrow transplant and cellular therapies program at the Atlanta center, with medical director Leslie Popplewell, M.D., previously a leader of the program at City of Hope’s main campus in Duarte, California. Strategic areas of focus over the next several years include further development of programs for hematological, lung and breast cancers.
“Breast cancer is such a common disease, and we have a very high incidence in young women, particularly African American women, in the areas we service,” she said. “So finding the best treatments for those patients is a priority.”
Expanding Access to Clinical Trials
“One of the things I’m very passionate about is clinical trials because many times in cancer, that’s where you’ll find your best treatment,” she said.
Since her arrival at City of Hope Cancer Center Atlanta, they’re on track to double the number of patients enrolled in clinical trials for the calendar year 2024, compared with 2023.
Dr. Higgins herself has enormous experience in designing, developing and implementing clinical trials. As a leader in the cancer research community, she is on the board of directors for NRG Oncology, an organization at the forefront of clinical research, funded by the National Cancer Institute; is on the board of directors for RTOG Foundation; was co-chair of the 2021 World Conference on Lung Cancer; and has received numerous awards for her own research.
Coupled with her broad knowledge of clinical trials is an understanding of which ones are best suited to the patients in City of Hope’s Atlanta community.
A Focus on Wellness
With a career dedicated to the battle against cancer, and a family history of disease, in her private life Dr. Higgins knows the importance of a healthy lifestyle, not just for her patients but for herself and her family.
She and her husband, Darren Kies, M.D., an interventional radiologist, met as undergrads at Vanderbilt University. They haven’t been apart since. They went to medical school together at Tulane University, then both did their residency at Duke University Medical Center. For them and their two sons, ages 11 and 13, wellness is a priority.
Dr. Higgins exercises five times a week, a combination of running, weightlifting, yoga and rucking, which is walking with a weighted vest — hers is 12 pounds, her husband’s an impressive 65. They eat healthfully and try to get a solid eight hours of sleep each night.
It also doesn’t hurt to have great colleagues in a work culture dedicated to supporting your highest goals. Dr. Higgins has found that at City of Hope.
“I’ve been very happy here,” she said. “Everyone is aligned to the same mission — helping patients with cancer. And you can see the wonderful impact that has on patients and their families.”