Chapter 19: Prevention and Care Become Academic Fields
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Description
Here Dr. Mendelsohn talks about the significance of building dimensions of MD Anderson’s mission (Care, Research, Education, Prevention) into academic fields, in particular patient care and cancer prevention. He notes that Dr. Ronald DePinho’s Moon Shots Program includes prevention. He mentions a new program in prevention and the fact that nursing has become a more academic field with the granting of Ph.Ds.
Identifier
MendelsohnJ_03_20121017_C19
Publication Date
10-17-2012
City
Houston, Texas
Interview Session
John Mendelsohn, MD, Oral History Interview, October 17, 2012
Topics Covered
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center - Building the Institution Institutional Processes Education The MD Anderson Brand, Reputation Institutional Mission and Values MD Anderson Culture
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Disciplines
History of Science, Technology, and Medicine | Oncology | Oral History
Transcript
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
You mentioned last time that there was this discussion that perhaps putting a prevention clinic out near the galleria area.
John Mendelsohn, MD:
That’s right. We thought about a prevention clinic with the Texas Heart Institute, with Dr. Willerson, because when you go up for a prevention workup, you’re not just interested in preventing cancer. You want to prevent heart disease and diabetes and all kinds of things. Do we want to hire the staff to be able to see a whole lot of people that are healthy and think about prevention of heart disease, or should we just focus on preventing cancer? These are issues that we were discussing. I presume that they’re still under discussion. I think when you’re already really outstanding at taking care of cancer patients and doing research on how to take care of them even better, and you need more resources for that, it’s a challenge to think, well, wait a minute. Am I going to take a whole lot of our resources and set up a program for the well people in Houston or around the world, when we’re so focused on cancer therapy? The Mayo Clinic does it, and Hopkins does it. Is this the right way to use our resources? These are tough decisions.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
I wanted to make sure that we covered all of the inter-institutional observations that you wanted to make.
John Mendelsohn, MD:
There’s a little more. During the past 15 years, there were many discussions that nursing should become an academic activity. We decided that was good, so if you look in our yearbook, which is our catalog, you will see now the Department of Nursing is there giving PhDs. It’s a small program. We also train a lot of oncology nurses. We’ve expanded that, and of course, that involves interactions with the Health Science Center’ nursing school. It began about 6 or 7 years ago, and it’s gradually grown.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
This was part of your vision to strengthen the academic base?
John Mendelsohn, MD:
It was my vision and the head of nursing and Dr. Burke, who was the physician-in-chief. We all felt that that was important. At one point we created in prevention, a department that looks at health disparities. We were thinking about having a department that looked at healthcare delivery. The research would be on how to deliver healthcare more effectively and efficiently, comparative effectiveness. That program never got started outside of the hospital. It’s built into the hospital’s programs. It is listed on the one-page summary diagram as an institute, but it’s not built into the academic program.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
In each of these cases, what is the significance of building these programs into the academic dimension of the institution?
John Mendelsohn, MD:
There are 2 reasons to do research: to expand knowledge, and to impact society. If you’re going to attract good people and you’re going to create the resources to do research, it usually involves an academic program. But, you can be doing research primarily in order to improve the efficiency and efficacy of MD Anderson. This is being done by the hospital, and the people doing it often have PhDs, but you’re not involving a lot of students. You’re not setting up courses. You’re mainly doing research in order to improve care at MD Anderson. You’re publishing it, but it’s not as academic a program. An academic program means you have a formal catalogue, you have formal courses, you have students, you’re giving degrees, and it’s a big deal to set that up. We’re doing some academic collaborating with the School of Public Health, too. I mentioned about looking at comparative effectiveness; that could be set up jointly with the School of Public Health, and there may or may not be enough interest in it. There are so many opportunities here, and everybody is working pretty hard and pretty busy. The priorities are set, I think, more around expanding areas that are working really well and are one of the top in the world or are mission critical, rather than putting a lot of resources into trying many new academic pursuits.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
The institution evolves pretty slowly. You have to wait for the right moment for those connections to take place so that people can act on the possibility for collaboration.
John Mendelsohn, MD:
No, I don’t think that’s true, because in some areas the institution evolves very fast. About 10 years ago, Dr. Kripke and I had a series of meetings with faculty leaders. We said, “What are the areas MD Anderson should expand in?” I think a list of 38 was generated. We narrowed it down to 5 or 6, and we set up the south campus, and those programs were set up within a few years. We built our immunology program. We built our systems biology program. Our Proton Therapy Unit is there. We acted very aggressively on that. It’s some of the more peripheral areas where it’s slower, but not in the major areas of focus of our mission and our vision, which is patient care and research and how they interact. I think we underutilize opportunities with Rice. I told you I thought we need more interdisciplinary training in computational methods and computer science for biology researchers and cancer researchers in the future, and Rice is full of people that are good at that. We ought to be taking more advantage of it, in my opinion.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
You’ve talked about your view of what has been done, what could be done. I really am getting this picture of you as this person who always sees opportunities for collaboration. Would you describe yourself in that way?
John Mendelsohn, MD:
Yes. I like to think strategically about how to build whatever I’m working on into being one of the best or the best. There are really 2 ways to go about that. One is to build internally, and the other is to leverage by collaborating. There are certain core things you’ve got to build internally, but then beyond that, it’s less expensive and it’s quicker and easier and more possible to reach excellence to collaborate where there’s excellence nearby, and duplicating it would be a challenge, and taking advantage of it would be terrific. That’s sort of my philosophy.
Recommended Citation
Mendelsohn, John MD and Rosolowski, Tacey A. PhD, "Chapter 19: Prevention and Care Become Academic Fields" (2012). Interview Chapters. 1435.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/1435
Conditions Governing Access
Open
