Do all cancers need to be treated? The role of thyroglobulin in the management of thyroid cancer: the 2006 Hayes Martin lecture.

H ayes Martin died on Christmas Day 1977. I was a fellow on the head and neck service at Memorial Hospital, New York, New York, at that time. I never met Dr Martin because he had been an invalid for many years. I felt his influence constantly, though, because my teachers, my attending physicians, had all been his students, his fellows, or his colleagues. Dr Martin’s first article, co-written in 1928 with Dr Quick, described how to perform a gastrostomy. We had little else to offer our patients at that time. His last article, published in 1962, emphasized the importance of tying 1-handed knots to expedite the performance of head and neck surgical procedures. There is no one procedure that we can attribute to Dr Martin. Perhaps his most important single contribution to head and neck oncology was his recognition of the value of fine-needle aspiration biopsy (FNAB). What Dr Martin did, through his teachings and his writings, was to create a structure, not a building, but a structure within which one could provide total care for patients with head and neck cancer. His greatest contribution, his true legacy, is not what he did but those whom he trained, others whom they trained, and yet others whom we will continue to train.