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Alan B. Cantor, Author of SAS Survival Analysis Techniques for Medical Research, Second Edition, Talks to Authorline
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A member of the Biostatistics Core at the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute, Alan B. Cantor earned his Ph.D. in Mathematics and had an additional two-year post-doctoral fellowship in Biostatistics. His SAS software experience spans a 22-year period with extensive use of Base SAS, SAS/STAT, the IML procedure, and SAS/GRAPH software. Cantor's work has been published in several prestigious medical journals and in noted scientific and statistical publications such as the New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of the American Medical Association, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Controlled Clinical Trials, and Statistics in Medicine. Cantor continues to teach, write about, and study the methods of survival analysis research. |
- AL (Authorline): What was your motivation for writing your book?
- AC (Alan Cantor): When Julie Platt suggested that the timing was right for a second edition of my book,
Extending SAS Survival Analysis Techniques for Medical Research, I started thinking about making changes and additions that would make it
more usable as a textbook. Then, the Chair of the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of South Florida
asked me to teach their course in Survival Analysis. I couldn't resist having a set of "guinea pigs" on which to try some of my ideas. So
I agreed to teach the course and decided to write the second edition.
- AL: Who are you targeting with your book?
- AC: I attempted to make it useful for a wide group - virtually anyone with a desire to learn more about
Survival Analysis and wanting to use SAS software to do it. It should be useful to experienced statisticians as well as to those with little
previous background in statistics.
- AL: What features of the book are you especially pleased with?
- AC: I worked quite hard to find ways to explain some moderately advanced topics in a way that readers without
much mathematical or statistical background could understand. It was gratifying when reviewers complemented favorably on that aspect
of the book.
- AL: How will your book benefit SAS users?
- AC: For the SAS user not familiar with Survival Analysis, this book will shorten his/her learning curve considerably.
The user who is already familiar with Survival Analysis will benefit from the macros that implement methods not currently
dealt with by SAS procedures.
- AL: What were some of the joys of writing this book?
- AC: Based on my experience with the first edition, the greatest joy was anticipation. It's been great meeting
SAS users who tell me that my book was helpful to them. I look forward to that happening with the second edition as well.
- AL: How did you develop as a writer while you were creating this book?
- AC: I think that this book, and the first edition, helped me to get out of the journal article
writing mode, which seems to be based on presenting information as concisely as possible (and leaving it to the reader to figure it out),
and into a user-friendlier mode, which puts the burden on the author to explain things clearly.
- AL: What did you learn while writing this book that would be important for other authors to know?
- AC: Patience and perseverance. You've got to remember that, as opposed to the spoken word, what you write is permanent.
It stays there and you're responsible for it forever. You need to get it right and do it as well as you can. But when
you've done that, it feels great.
- AL: How did you decide to publish with SAS?
- AC: That was a no-brainer. There was no other way I could get the support of people who knew the audience
I was addressing, and who could market my book to that audience.
- AL: Are you glad you decided to publish with SAS? If so, what has made the experience a good one?
- AC: Definitely. Judy Whatley was great to work with, and everyone else in the BBU program was helpful as well.
- AL: Your book will be going to the printer in just a few weeks. How does it feel to be in the home stretch of such a long project?
- AC: Relieved.
- AL: What advice would you give to potential authors?
- AC: Think it through carefully and fully. What's your motivation? What do you expect to get out of the
experience and what is its value to you? I'm not just talking about money here. If you feel that you've learned some things that would be
helpful to others and you truly want to share this, then do it.
- AL: How were you able to balance your time between your career and writing this book?
- AC: That was easy--I didn't. My work took too much time to allow me to spend any work hours on this book.
I worked on it during evenings and weekends at home. My kids are grown and have moved on and my wonderful wife has been great about it.
Her support has been vital to my being able to do this.
- AL: When you aren't writing or consulting, how do you like to spend your free time?
- AC: Reading, exercising to try to counteract the ravages of time, and following the Bucs and Gators.