Chapter 01: Early Memories and a Visual Mind

Chapter 01: Early Memories and a Visual Mind

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Description

In this segment, Dr. Cox talks about childhood memories of West Virginia and Dayton, Ohio, where he recalls blackouts during WWII and his parent’s Victory Garden. He recalls his early inclination for the sciences and talks about the strongly visual field he ultimately selected as well as some of the visual qualities of his own thinking. In addition to appreciating Early Renaissance art and Gothic architecture, he admits that he loves women’s fashion, particularly enjoying features of design and proportion. His visual sensibilities focus on structure, he notes.

Identifier

CoxJ_01_20130103_C01

Publication Date

1-3-2013

City

Houston, Texas

Topics Covered

The Interview Subject's Story - Personal Background; Personal Background; Character, Values, Beliefs, Talents; Funny Stories; Portraits

Transcript

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

I am Tacey Ann Rosolowski, and I am interviewing radiation oncologist Dr. James Cox for the Making Cancer History Voices Oral History Project run by the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. Dr. Cox was first interviewed in 2004 by Lesley Brunet Dr. Cox came to MD Anderson in 1988 as the institution’s physician in chief. From 1995 to 2011 he served as head of the Division of Radiation Oncology. He is also a professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology and holds the Hubert L. and Olive Stringer Distinguished Chair in Oncology in honor of Sue Gribble Stringer. This interview is taking place in Dr. Cox’s office at the Proton Therapy Center located south of MD Anderson’s main campus at the intersection of Old Spanish Trail and Fannin Street in Houston. This is the first of two—perhaps more—planned interview sessions. Today is January 3, 2013, and the time is 1:06. So thank you Dr. Cox for participating in this project.

James D. Cox, MD:

It is my pleasure.  

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

And I am looking forward to speaking with you and tracing through—as you said you have had four different careers at MD Anderson, so I am looking forward to teasing apart what those are. But I wanted to start just for the record with some background. If you could tell me where you were born and when.

James D. Cox, MD:

I was born in Steubenville, Ohio July 16, 1938.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

And did you grow up in that area?

James D. Cox, MD:

No. I think we only lived there probably for six months or a year and then moved to Charleston, West Virginia where my father had a job working for a small insurance company located in Cincinnati, Ohio. And I lived there for—I guess—the better part of seven or eight years and moved then to Dayton, Ohio, which is where I consider, by and large, I have grown.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

As you look back at that time—your growing up years—are there significant people or significant experiences that you feel shaped your intellectual perspective or your commitment to the particular fields of research and care that you have devoted yourself to?

James D. Cox, MD:

Well not from the period in Charleston particularly—that was during the war, however, and I do remember the blackouts. Our house overlooked the carbine and carbon chemical plant in the middle of the Kanawha River, and it was lighted brightly. It seemed always to serve as an ideal place to locate if they wanted to bomb something. And I couldn’t imagine—in retrospect—I can’t imagine somebody wanting to bomb something in Charleston, West Virginia, but if there were anything to bomb that would have been it.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

How did that have an influence on you?

James D. Cox, MD:

Well the war itself had an influence. My father, who was partially blind, did not serve in the military, but we had a so-called victory garden. We grew vegetables. We didn’t have much money, and we made due with what we had. We had chickens, and the chickens gave us eggs. It gave us an occasional chicken.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

And there were meat rationings.

James D. Cox, MD:

Yes. So I remember that time as a complicated time for the world, but it did not really affect the happiness of my childhood. I mean—I started in school, I did not go to a kindergarten. There was not any kindergarten where I went—or I mean where I lived. So I started in the first grade, then I think by the third grade or so we moved to Dayton, Ohio. And in Dayton I had grade school teachers who—and high school teachers—who had effects. I got my one and only C in my life in high school in Latin. And I found that I had a natural inclination towards the sciences. That was not anything from any particular background. I mean—my sister had no inclination towards the sciences. I had one sister five years older than I.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

What about the fact that you ended up going into a field that is very visual? When did you realize that that was an important part of the sciences you were interested in?

James D. Cox, MD:

I think probably the visual aspect of my—of science for me was more of a—more of a tool than it was an end point. The only other thing I have ever done visually that might be considered the least bit artistic would be photography, which I am not a particularly adept photographer, but I have taken pictures that I enjoyed reflecting trips. But you know, like other things, I used the visual part as the tool since I am not in diagnostic imaging—diagnostic radiology but use the images from diagnostic radiology in planning the treatment of patients with cancer. I would say it was not really at the forefront of my scientific thinking at all.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

So do you consider yourself a visual thinker or—?

James D. Cox, MD:

Yes. I do. I am a visual person. I am affected by—yeah—I am affected by how things look, and as a really remote aside—and you will have to think whether you want to include this at all—speaking of being visual—my—a major avocation is women’s fashion.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

How interesting. How interesting.

James D. Cox, MD:

And I buy about eighty percent of my wife’s clothes, and I enjoy fashions, but I do not think I would ever have any talent to draw or to do—to create fashion. There is a man who owns a boutique in Rice Village that I think has a wonderful job. He owns what was originally a women’s boutique and now has extended to include men’s clothing. And I think he has got a great job. He picks—he selects styles to sell.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

So is it color? Is it proportion? Is it design? What is the visual element that grabs you?

James D. Cox, MD:

I think it is probably proportion and design—also color, but it is—my interests in art are quite varied and do not fit particularly easily in any of that. I mean—I love the impressionists, but I also like the art of the—well—the early Renaissance in northern Europe.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

The reason I am asking you is often visual thinkers do not have a good way of talking about the way their brain works—you know—we do not have a lot of language for that in this culture. But with people who work in surgery or work with interventional radiology—and Sidney Wallace talked a lot about his own visual thinking.

James D. Cox, MD:

Oh, well he is—Sid Wallace has visual abilities that are extraordinary as an artist—

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

As an artist.

James D. Cox, MD:

—and of course he brought that to interventional radiology.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Sure.

James D. Cox, MD:

I am a huge admirer of him.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

But—you know—those gifts can also work inside the mind even if they do not express themselves in a more art or external form, so do you see things in schematic forms? Do you see systems in color? I mean—how does your own mind work when you are working on—you know—in your own field?

James D. Cox, MD:

I think probably it is more inclined towards structural rather than color. I love the—probably if there is one art form that I will travel hundreds of miles to see is the gothic architecture—early gothic architecture—not the flamboyant, but the architecture of the twelfth, thirteenth, early fourteenth centuries. And I—the churches and the abbeys and not necessarily only the large structures but—and I like the structure. I find it fascinating, but I have not thought about that relative particularly to what I do professionally.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Well I won’t—maybe we can return to the question again later if you would like to think about it.

James D. Cox, MD:

All right.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

I mean—I am just always curious because it is part of how people work and part of (both speaking at once).

James D. Cox, MD:

That is an interesting question, and I had not particularly thought along those lines relative to what I do professionally.

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

When did you realize that you had some kind of visual sensitivity or interest?

James D. Cox, MD:

It probably became most striking to me when I lived in France in the later part of when I was in—sorry—after I finished my residency training program—I lived for a year in Paris and travelled—I have been so far as (???)(inaudible) and throughout France and to some degree in England and Belgium and Germany. And I think there it was—especially the architectural possibilities, but also—I mean—of course the museums were incredibly rich, and on Sundays many of them were free. I had three kids under six!

Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:

Oh—wow.

James D. Cox, MD:

So travelling around at that time was not easy, but I did it a lot.

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Chapter 01: Early Memories and a Visual Mind

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