Chapter 10: Personal Choices and a Philosophy about the Importance of Having a Career and A Personal Life
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Description
Dr. Travis shares the name of her son, Scott Philips, whom she chose to have as a single parent. She goes on to talk about the issue of women, career and family, noting that she is tired of the question: “We aren’t over this yet.” She also says that it’s disturbing to her that this discussion usually focuses only on people with children. “Everyone deserves a personal life. We must provide people with time. Dr. Travis notes that her son is an “important legacy” for her to leave and she shares the advice she gives to women considering having children. She observes that the burden of child care still falls on women. Though more younger men are more involved, she still see vestiges of “old school” thinking even in younger men, citing what younger men say about women in leadership roles. Dr. Travis believes that the Office of Women Faculty Programs needs to develop a community of men discussing issues about life balance and personal life. She goes on to explain that careers in medicine and research demand obsession, obligation, and duty, but an individual must have down time to preserve resilience. She talks about her own interest in travel and the symphony and the pleasure she has taken in making friends around the world.
Identifier
TravisEL_02_20140325_C10
Publication Date
3-25-2014
City
Houston, Texas
Interview Session
Elizabeth Travis, PhD, Oral History Interview, March 25, 2014
Topics Covered
The Interview Subject's Story - Character and Personal Philosophy Character and Personal Philosophy Personal Background MD Anderson Culture Professional Values, Ethics, Purpose The Life and Dedication of Clinicians and Researchers
Transcript
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Now, you mentioned your son. What is his name?
Elizabeth Travis, PhD:
Scott. Scott Philips. His middle name is my family name, La Torre. Twenty-seven.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Wow.
Elizabeth Travis, PhD:
Recently married.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Big milestone there.
Elizabeth Travis, PhD:
Big milestone, yes.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
And that brings up the whole issue of career women, women in leadership, families. Do you want to talk about that a little bit as an issue for women?
Elizabeth Travis, PhD:
Sure, because I have to tell you that as much as I felt like I don’t want to talk about it, it’s not that I don’t want to talk about it, it’s like, why aren’t we over this yet? But we’re not, and every time I go somewhere and give talks, I always have to talk about work life, never call it “balance,” call it fit, call it integration, call it whatever you want, but you never balance it. It’s a little disturbing to me. One of the things that disturbs me about this is that when we talk about this, we only think about people with children, when, in fact, I think everybody deserves a personal life, whether you have children or not, whether you’re married or single, you deserve time to rejuvenate. You deserve a personal life, and I think that we have to make sure that we provide people the time to do that. Now, the issue with children, of course, is that they add an extra burden, so I don’t think we can totally ignore that either, but I think we always have to remember that everybody—it’s like the old thing of “Oh, you don’t have children, so you can take call on Christmas.” Well, no, I don’t want to do that. I don’t want to do the experiment on Christmas all the time just because I’m single. So I think our sensitivity needs to broaden to include everyone, not just women and men with children. But on the subject of women with children, I’m glad I had a child. I mean, I think I would have been very unhappy at the end of my life had I not had one. I think that, I said, for me, in addition to all the stuff I’ve done here, you know, I think a legacy is that you have hopefully produced a functioning and contributing member of society in the next generation. It’s been a lot of fun having a child. Now, how was it trying to do that, a single mother most of the time, and how to—you know, I always tell women, first of all, I was professor, so I had a little more flexibility. I was a tenured—I was actually tenured associate professor. I became a professor when he was two. So that provided me a little more flexibility in my time and things like that. But I have plenty of colleagues who’ve had them in graduate school and in postdocs, you know, so I think there are a lot of role models around here of women who have had children, been successful. Margaret Kripke has one daughter. She was chief academic officer. Now, she had hers on the other end of the childbearing spectrum. I had mine on the later end of the childbearing spectrum. I always tell women, buy all the help you can get. Time is a precious commodity, and, to me, I wanted to spend my time two places: on my career and on my son. And I didn’t want to spend it doing a lot of other things, and so I didn’t. You know, I had somebody who cooked dinners, at least when he was real young. When he got older, I didn’t. But I had help. I had somebody there every day. Even when he was in high school, I had the same housekeeper I’d had. I still have her, actually, because what she does is she gives me time back, gives me time even now, to—like this weekend, just go to the art museum and see the Sargent watercolors and the Impressionists and have, again—even though my son is married, we don’t have any—Jerry [_____] and I don’t have any kids at home anymore, but it’s time to step away from here. So I tell women, you know, buy all the help you can get. You have to know when it’s a—when the office needs your attention and when your family needs your attention, and sometimes they’re in competition, and that’s when it gets tough. When a grant is due, a grant is due. When a patient is sick and you have to be in, a patient is sick and you have to be in, and that’s where your help, you know, can help you out in that regard.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Now, I notice when you were listing the role models, they were all women, of course.
Elizabeth Travis, PhD:
Yes.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
We still don’t talk about this as an issue for men? How is that [inaudible]?
Elizabeth Travis, PhD:
Well, it’s because the burden still falls [primarily] on women. All the data support that. Men are becoming more engaged, you know, the young generation becoming more engaged with their children, the men want to coach the soccer teams, you know, they want to see their kids play the sports, they want to be more involved. It is changing, but it’s nowhere near 50/50. There are some isolated incidents where I think it is. I mean, I do know of individuals, yes, my colleagues here, who have children, and their husbands also work here. So I think there are—it is changing, but it’s not changing very quickly. (laughs) And maybe with this next generation it might, but I think there’s still vestiges of the old school, if you will, even in younger males.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
How does that show itself? In thinking of specific examples, what are you thinking of particularly? Elizabeth Travis PhD Just some attitudes and actually statements that—
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Do you feel you can share any of those? (laughs)
Elizabeth Travis, PhD:
No, I can’t, but it’s things about—you know, men will say, “Well, you know, those are choices that—,” or that women don’t choose to be leaders or they don’t choose this, when, in fact, they aren’t asked. And that’s—you know, women need to say, “I want this,” rather than always be asked [to do it]. But there is still a little bit of a—it’s not as pervasive as it used to be, and, if you look, our president [Dr. Ronald DePinho] and his wife [Dr. Lynda Chin] have three children. They are good role models. She is a department chair. She’s a very internationally recognized scientist, and so is the president, and yet I know they spend time with their family, with their children. They make it a point, and I think they’re good role models for both men and women. I’m glad you asked that, because I actually had not verbalized that about them. The provost [Dr. Ethan Dmitrovsky] is married, and he has now one son still at home. His wife [_____] doesn’t work, so there’s another. So there are all different models of this, but I know that his family time, his personal time is very important to him and he guards it. So I think there are role models. In fact, one of the things we probably need to do from this office is have a panel of men talking about this rather than women.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Yes, I think that would be interesting, and I was also interested in the way you led this particular—your response to my first question in this section about the idea of personal life, not just family and children, but that everyone deserves a personal life. And, I mean, I’ve been struck with some of the individuals that I have interviewed, that it doesn’t seem like they have much of one, or there were many, many, many years when they didn’t seem to have a great deal of personal life, as if that was what the profession demanded, that you had to really sacrifice that dimension of yourself. And I wonder if things have changed to the degree that suddenly there’s an outcry of people who realize, “Yes, I do need this. I need this for my health, my well-being, my spiritual well-being,” all the dimensions of humanity that need to be fleshed out so you’re an actual functioning human creature.
Elizabeth Travis, PhD:
You know, there’s always tension between the need for downtime, personal life, if you will, versus what the job demands. I think that all of us knew going into this—I think we did, perhaps not, but I think we did—what this profession is about. In fact, last night Jerry and I had dinner with a friend of his who has just recently retired from medicine, and we were commenting on how obsessive those of us who’ve chosen medicine and science as a career are. And it’s true, we are, and I think we do everything with that same obsession. (laughs) I mean, I’m not dancing right now because I can’t find the time, speaking of no personal—I have a personal life. That just doesn’t happen to be part of it right now. I just can’t find time for it, unfortunately. But how you go after it, I mean, you know, it’s always very focused, do it, do it, do this, do this. So I think part of it is it’s demanding. It’s demanding, and I can’t imagine—I mean, it’s very demanding being a physician. And so I think going into that, I don’t think anybody was unaware of that. I think everybody, I think, comes into this also with a real sense of obligation, a real sense of duty, but they enjoy that. I mean, it’s why we’ve chosen it, you know. I said when I was at the Gray Lab and working on weekends and doing the experiments, why? Because I loved it. I loved doing them, I loved getting the data, and it was a lot of fun. I think what there’s more focus on now is understanding that you can’t work all the time, because you’re not very resilient. You don’t have anything stored up, any energy stored up, should something happen that requires more energy. So I think it’s an issue of resiliency and learning how to be resilient. I mean, I can’t think of a time when I didn’t have a personal life, not that I leave the office at five and come in at nine, no, every day, no. Was I off every weekend? No. But I can’t—I look back and I’m just thinking of the time I was in London for three years, and, yes, I worked weekends, but I also went to the symphony on Sunday night, because the symphony halls were all open on Sundays. And I traveled in Europe. And I think the other thing that is one of the real benefits and one of the wonderful things about this career has been the opportunity to travel and make friends all over the world, and I think that’s a wonderful opportunity, you know, that I never envisioned that when I wanted to be a scientist. I just never even thought about that, but it certainly, I think, is—we all know people all over the world, and so it’s a big community.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
I’m thinking about that comment that they couldn’t keep Elizabeth at home. (laughter)
Elizabeth Travis, PhD:
Right.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
You always wanted to be out there.
Elizabeth Travis, PhD:
Yes, I always wanted to be out there.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Ever, ever widening circles.
Elizabeth Travis, PhD:
Yes, yes, yes, that’s right. (laughter) That’s right. But I think all of us really enjoy that, you know, and I think a lot of times what you do is, you know, if I go to a meeting in a place where I’d like to spend some time, I take some vacation around it. So, I mean, when we went to India, I did—there was a meeting and gave a bunch of talks, and then we took a week off after and traveled around. Would I have done that without that? Maybe, maybe not. But the point is, again, I think you take your opportunities—you have to see where the opportunities are to have that kind of life, but I can’t say that I didn’t have a personal life.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
And you have to give yourself permission, too, to do it.
Elizabeth Travis, PhD:
Yes.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
It’s okay to have downtime.
Elizabeth Travis, PhD:
Yes, and that’s really hard for us to do, I think, you know. It really is hard for us to do. Yes, the job, the position throughout has demanded, but I think, like you said, you have to know when it’s time to say, “I need some time.” If you let it, it’ll eat you alive, that’s for sure. I think it’s difficult now because there’s a lot going on in healthcare in general, in how it’s being delivered, and there’s a lot of pressure on physicians, and it’s going to make it more difficult, I think, throughout the medical community. So it’d be interesting to know whether individuals who demanded it, did they mind that. I do think we all make choices of how much we are going to put into our work, our careers, always recognizing that there are always tradeoffs. None of it comes without a price, and the question is, what are you willing to pay for that?
Recommended Citation
Travis, Elizabeth L. PhD and Rosolowski, Tacey A. PhD, "Chapter 10: Personal Choices and a Philosophy about the Importance of Having a Career and A Personal Life" (2014). Interview Chapters. 1028.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/1028
Conditions Governing Access
Open
