A Bermudian cancer researcher working in one of the US’s top medical centres told young people to recognise those who made way for their success.

Malcolm V Brock was featured in an article for The Cancer Letter, a publication focused on oncology, during its Black History Month promotion.

In the article, Dr Brock talked about how his success, like many others, was both inspired and created from the work of those who came before him.

He said that, for many youngsters, the path to success had been laid out so well by their predecessors that “all you have to do is just get in your car and keep going”.

He added: “Whereas before, not only were they walking, sometimes they couldn’t — they had to crawl.

“If anybody thinks that they got to, and especially in Black History Month, you think you got to where you are based on your own self, you got another thought coming.”

Dr Brock is the director of clinical and translational research in thoracic surgery at the Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Centre linked to John Hopkins University in Baltimore.

His main research revolves around creating markers for solid tumours to help doctors better detect and identify cancer in its early stages.

Dr Brock also served as president of the Society of Black Academic Surgeons, or SBAS, which teaches young Black medical students about the benefits of becoming an academic surgeon.

He said the society was focused on “excellence” over “affirmative action” and pushing pupils to be the best that they can.

Dr Brock said: “SBAS is doing what it’s always done — it’s saying, ‘look, it is not about getting a seat at the table because of your race, or because of some other accolade that’s not associated with excellence. You’re getting that seat at the table because you are excellent in what you do. You’re the best of the best’.”

Despite his distinction in the medical field, Dr Brock told the publication that he cut his teeth studying Japanese as a Rhodes Scholar.

He explained that he travelled to the country on a Rotary Exchange Scholarship as a child, during which time he strengthened his ability to read and write in the language.

Dr Brock said being in another country taught him how similar people were across the globe in spite of cultural differences.

He explained: “What I’ve learnt from an early age — being immersed and speaking Japanese, being in that culture — is you might think that is a completely different culture, but when it gets down to brass tacks, relationships between each other, we’re all one.”

In the vein of Black History Month, Dr Brock added that a similar theme was brought up in Martin Luther King Jr’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, a text that he encouraged everyone to read.

He said the letter spoke to how there were many mundane things that people shared with each other regardless of where they came from.

Dr Brock said: “The same human things that bind us, bind each other — and individually, we like each other and we can have a conversation and we can even be best friends.”

Dr Brock eventually studied Japanese at Princeton and Oxford, even writing a book in Japanese called Biotechnology in Japan and almost starting a PhD in the field before leaving to pursue medicine.

He told The Cancer Letter that he still used his Japanese skills, even serving as professor of surgery at Juntendo University in Tokyo for two weeks out of the year.