We would like to share with you our vision of Franck and the experience we have had by working alongside him with two tributes written by the members of our team and read during the funeral ceremony.
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An important part of your activity was dedicated to the health related quality of life of cancer patients. While this discipline was still unknown, you successfully submitted a thesis, innovative because the concept was still little developed in France, focusing on the methodology of quality of life in the field of digestive oncology.
Despite the doubts that such a novelty engendered, your conviction and your determination allowed you to continue your efforts to develop a team on the theme of quality of life, methodology and epidemiology in oncology.
Until now, patient survival and tumor progression were the main criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of cancer treatments. You have shown in France the interest of the quality of life as a complementary criterion whereas it was at that time very little evaluated.
You have demonstrated the value of proposing a standardization of its measurement so that the results can be more fully taken into account in clinical practice. It was a concern for you that your knowledge and skills can be placed at the service of clinical practice, with the patient at the center of your objectives.
Your precursor and quality work in this field will remain a reference for all.
Always one step ahead, or even two, you were able to propose innovative and risky projects, always with success, thus the quality of life in routine could be set up at the University Hospital of Besançon, first center in France, thus placing the patient at the center of his care.
Thanks to you, thanks to your strength of conviction and your hard work, you have imposed the quality of life as a priority criterion in certain therapeutic situations where survival is no longer the criterion of interest for the patient. You also showed that the quality of life was prognostic of the survival of the patient, hence the interest to take it into account to adapt the treatment of the patient.
The topic of supportive care, which you have more recently developed, had become your fight.
In spite of the illness, you have continued to work and to move forward, to make use of this experience at the service of your ideas, to better understand the pain, the needs, the feelings, the hopes.
You were a man recognized and appreciated, discreet and just.
You leave behind a wife and two boys.
Claire, Luther and Hector, Franck was a pillar of your family, and you must now continue life without him. He loved you with unlimited love. He prepared you for this ordeal, transmitted to you a strength and values of life. I know you're afraid of the future, but Franck will always be part of you. Through your friends, your family, and by remaining all three united, you will continue to grow, evolve and flourish.
Know that you are not alone and that we are all here to help you overcome this ordeal.
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Our adventure at the UMQVC began for most of us in 2012: it is true that by your side, it is an adventure.
A scientific adventure, since it is the work and clinical research that bind us. Thanks to you, your knowledge and your many collaborations, we were immediately involved in important projetcs and we were able to learn from the best experts of our discipline. We participated and carried out large-scale studies, produced a large number of papers and laid the first stones of innovative projects at the service of the patient. Always with your vision that cancer is not only a tumor.
A funny adventure sometimes, when you were seen arriving with your gangster beanie, your sock-ties, or when, even after several months, you were able to make mistakes in our names: Julia in place of Julie, Joëlle Krivitz in the place of Joëlle Fritszch, or Deoui instead of Dewi. Yes, we can say that you often surprised us!
A difficult adventure at times, faced with the workload or doubts that often create the launch of innovative projects. Or these last months when your absence worried us ...
A human adventure because you have all brought us together in a young, dynamic team, with different and complementary profiles. You believed in us, you granted us a great autonomy and you always had an immense confidence in us. You considered each person as equal and you always believed that each person can progress and outdo himself. And it's true that in the last 5 years, we have learned a lot.
Franck, thank you for all these enriching adventures. You liked to compare yourself to the buffalo, for its power, its determination, and the impetus it can create. Be sure that working at your side has made us more agile and combative. And that we are still determined to carry your fights.
You welcomed us into your house where, during relaxed evenings, we exchanged on many other subjects than work, such as wine, music and travel. You introduced us to your family, Claire, Hector and Luther, who were immediately very friendly.
These last words are for you, Claire, Hector, Luther and all the family of Franck. We send you our warmest thoughts and wish you all the strength and courage to rebuild yourself. So that after having faced this terrible ordeal, you can again enjoy the small and great happiness that make the beauty of life.
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The UMQVC team
About Sophie PAGET-BAILLY
Sophie Paget-Bailly is a research engineer in epidemiology and clinical research. She passed with honours the East of France inter-region master’s degree in public health and occupational and environmental risks. During the master’s degree’s internship in the Interregional Epidemiology Unit of Bourgogne/Franche-Comté, she realized a quantitative health risk assessment in the context of chemical contamination of groundwater. She defended a PhD in Public Health and Epidemiology in Paris XI University, Doctoral School 420, working in the Centre for Research in Epidemiology and Population Health in Villejuif, France. Her PhD research focused on occupational exposures and head and neck cancer.