published in Targeted Oncology on November 25, 2025 

Dr Benjamin George champions patient-centered oncology in rural Nebraska, enhancing local cancer care access and fostering community support for patients.

We’re proud to introduce Benjamin George, MD, as our second 2025 Oncology Icon. With more than 20 years of experience, including 11 years of service in the US Army, George brings a deep commitment to patient-centered cancer care, especially in serving his rural community as the medical director of oncology at Community Hospital in McCook, Nebraska.

George was nominated by peers and selected from a pool of nominees by the editorial boards of Targeted Therapies in Oncology and Peers and Perspectives in Oncology.

George attended medical school at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, then completed his internal medicine residency while serving in the army. George transitioned to oncology and moved to Colorado after leaving the military in 2013. George then moved to Nebraska with a focus on building out the cancer care system in the rural setting, using his blend of empathy and expertise to transform Community Hospital into a regional hub.

Along with his work at Community Hospital in Nebraska, George also works to do outreach in Wray, Colorado, and Colby, Kansas, 2 underserved regions where patients previously faced significant barriers to receiving timely, specialized care. Through these outreach efforts, George has brought expert oncology consultations, follow-up care, and treatment planning directly to patients who would otherwise need to travel hours for care.

In an interview with Targeted Oncology, George discusses his background, journey to oncology, and commitment to serving rural communities.

Targeted Oncology: What led you to wanting to work in oncology?

Benjamin George, MD: As I was doing my residency in the army, I was able to do a lot of different rotations in internal medicine. I had this attraction and was always drawn towards the oncology patients. I felt like those were patients in need at a really important time of life. And oncology is one of the few specialties where we can follow patients longitudinally over years. There’s this intense emotion when they're first getting diagnosed, but then you can get them on treatment, you can follow them, and then they're survivors. I enjoy the relationships that I can develop over years. I still get invited to birthdays and graduations, so that that's quite rewarding.

Also, we've had tremendous growth [in the science and understanding of oncology] and an explosion of new drugs over the 20-plus years that I've been doing this. We're able to offer a lot more hope and a lot more therapy options to patients.

How does your program serve rural communities?

Where we're at, we're in this region of southwest Nebraska. We also have outreach in Wray, Colorado, and Colby, Kansas. This tri-state area is really a rural area, and what we’re looking to do is bring cancer care into these areas. These patients would drive 3-plus hours to Denver or Omaha. There was just no cancer care here in this region, but we have these good hospitals and support staff who really want to be able to help deliver cancer care here. That’s what we're trying to do: Bring cancer care closer to home, so that patients don't have to travel, but also make sure it's a high-quality cancer care.

How has your background impacted how you approach your work today?

I did my internal medicine and oncology-hematology fellowship in the army. Even in the army, I was doing outreach to rural sites at some of the smaller army sites. I've always had this in my practice. I think, for me, it was an area where I could make the biggest impact.

Cancer care is very complex, but it's also simple in the sense that you’re able to be there for someone at a time when they need it. And [Community Hospital has] a unique program. We're able to grow it from scratch, and we've had a lot of good community support. [When I started], we didn't even have a wig room for our patients who lose their hair, and we were able to start a program called Restoring You. I'm proud to say I was able to give the seed money for that, and then we had matching funds for the donors and the community. So, the community supports us here, and the patients are happy we're here. We really are making a difference in their lives because we're local, we're here, and they're able to get their care here. They're not having to drive 4 hours to get their cancer care.

Along with distance to care, are there any other unmet needs or challenges in rural cancer care?

It’s certainly an underserved area in many aspects of medicine. Sometimes, [patients] don't get even routine access to [primary or specialty] care, and that builds on to them getting sicker when they get diagnosed [with cancer]. I think also with their work ethic, a lot of [patients] are farmers, and they work hard. I think that’s kind of different, where they don’t or can’t take time to go get care.

But on the flip side, we have wonderful chemo nurses in our clinic, and we have a radiation oncologist. We have our own linear accelerator here, which is unique to have, to be able to deliver radiation here on site. That's a daily treatment that patients are coming here for, as opposed to driving hours one way every single day. We have great pharmacists, physical therapists, [and] nutritionists, so we have quite a lot of services that we do provide here.

For colleagues that work in similar settings, do you have any advice to share?

The good thing nowadays is the information is all available to us. We just must make sure that we keep up with that information. I think when we're in a setting like this, we must work maybe a little harder to keep up with things because we're a little bit more isolated in that sense. But the information is there, and we have to put it on ourselves to maybe be more active. I find myself reaching out to other colleagues, maybe more than I would have in other practices.

I appreciate this recognition, but it's not just me doing this. We have excellent administrative support from the hospital. Our nurses, the radiation team, pharmacy team, and physical therapist are wonderful and are very much a part of cancer treatment. This is being done as a team.