Chapter 11: The Faculty Health and Wellness Program: History and Evolution
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Description
In this chapter, Dr. Holleman sketches the history of the Faculty Health and Wellness Program and briefly describes the initiatives he set in place, including the Stressbusters Program designed to address physician burnout. He first notes that when he arrived at MD Anderson he saw the effects of faculty burnout, but has also never worked at an institution with more employee commitment to the institutional mission.
Next he talks about how he did a needs assessment through informal focus groups and began to hear about the serious morale issue among faculty, a problem that intensified when Dr. Ronald DePinho [oral history interview] assumed the presidency.
Identifier
HollemanWL_02_20170420_C11
Publication Date
4-20-2017
City
Houston, Texas
Interview Session
Warren L. Holleman, PhD, Oral History Interview, April 20, 2017
Topics Covered
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center - Building the Institution; MD Anderson History; MD Anderson Culture; Working Environment; Critical Perspectives on MD Anderson; Growth and/or Change; Overview; MD Anderson History
Transcript
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Now, when you assumed the role of director of Faculty Health and Wellness, why were you hired? You know, what was your mandate? And what—because sometimes there's a difference between what you've officially been told to do and kind of what you would like to do. So I'd also like to hear if there are some differences there.
Warren L. Holleman, PhD:
Right. Well, I mean, I don't think I was particularly qualified for the job. I never worked with faculty in this capacity before. On the other hand, this is a unique program. It's really the only program in the country that I know of that has a full-time faculty member dedicated toward promoting the health of the faculty. So you're not going to find a lot of people around the country who do this. There are clinics that focus on physician health. There's one in Houston, the Gabbard Center does that. Baylor Psychiatry, I think, has a focus on that, physicians, mental health. But so in a way, I wasn't particularly qualified. I guess the reason they hired me was, they had enjoyed working with me on programs. And they knew I ran programs as part of my job at Baylor, and they liked the way I did that. Then on top of that, I had the counseling credentials and experience and license. So they knew I could be a counselor and a coach for our faculty.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Now, was the position vacant? Or were they creating a position?
Warren L. Holleman, PhD:
It was vacant. They created the position, I think, in 2003.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Okay.
Warren L. Holleman, PhD:
The first director was named Thelma Jean Goodrich. She was a psychologist. She had left, I would guess, around 2006, and the position had been vacant for a couple of years.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Wow.
Warren L. Holleman, PhD:
Maybe 2007, you could check on that, or we could check on that. It had been vacant. They formed a search committee, and I was one of the people who applied for the job.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Mm-hmm. Now, how did the department start?
Warren L. Holleman, PhD:
Back in—Thanksgiving weekend, 2001, a very popular senior faculty member, a surgeon, died. And the cause of death was suicide. That sent some shockwaves around the community here. Did we talk about this last time?
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah, we did in relationship to my interview with Ellen Gritz [oral history interview], so, but...
Warren L. Holleman, PhD:
Should I tell the story?
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah, tell the story.
Warren L. Holleman, PhD:
I can't remember which parts I told or not.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
But that's right, and I don't have perfect memory, and it's your perspective anyway, so we've never captured that. So... (laughs)
Warren L. Holleman, PhD:
Okay. So I'll start that over, then. So Thanksgiving weekend 2001, a very popular senior member of the faculty died. I believe he died in his office. And the cause of death was suicide. People came back to work on Monday and they started hearing that this terrible thing had happened. And it sent shockwaves around the community, because it was jolting that he had died, and then the cause of death was also jolting. Then thirdly, a lot of people here worked very closely with him on a daily basis. So he was a friend. He was just a part of their routine and their life, and suddenly he was dead. And that was jolting. But then, on top of all of that, there was a perception that the institutional leadership did a bad job of communicating about what had happened. They sort of had a veil of secrecy, it was as though they didn't know what to say, so they didn't say anything. And so people were saying, "I come to work and work with him every day in surgery. And you're not even telling me the cause of death. That's weird. How can we just go back to work with these questions hanging over our head?" So a group of faculty became upset about this. Ellen Gritz was one, and I think Georgia Thomas, who is now director of Employee Health. I think Walter Baile [oral history interview] was involved, who is head of the ICARE programs, psychiatrist. I think Jan Yadiny [oral history interview], who is the head of Faculty Development, and a couple of others. And they went to Dr. Mendelsohn and to his executive committee, and they complained. They said we think that while you don't need to go into the details of his suicide, we have a right to know the cause of his death and just the basic facts, the fact that he's dead, and that he took his own life. And to his Dr. Mendelsohn said, "You're right. We didn't know what to do. We didn't handle it very well. Form a committee. We'll give you a budget. Write up a protocol of how to handle these things better in the future." And they did. And the institution has used that protocol since then. And the committee eventually—the committee started having, quote, "stressbuster" activities for faculty. And they formed focus groups to identify the faculty needs, work-home conflicts were a big one. And then eventually, they hired a director of Faculty Health. They got the funding to do that. I think that was 2003, and that was Dr. Thelma Jean Goodrich.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Okay. Okay. So when you took over, what was the state of the department? What was being offered, and what were you tasked to do?
Warren L. Holleman, PhD:
Well, there had been a gap of a couple of years with no director. But Katrina Allen was—I think her title was program manager at the time. She was running what we call the "stressbuster programs;" concerts, Houston Grand Opera would come in each year with their young artists and give a performance. In collaboration with us at Baylor, they had established a tradition of having a pianist come in every year named Richard Kogan. And he was a psychiatrist who was also a concert pianist, and he would give a combination of a concert and a lecture. He would pick a different composer each year and play their music and talk about how their life and their health and their mental health affected their music. And they would have folk dance groups come in, different types of concerts and performances. So they were doing those things under the auspices of the Faculty Development department. So when I came in, we did more sort of informal focus groups, needs assessment, and began to expand their program.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
What did you hear in these focus groups?
Warren L. Holleman, PhD:
Okay. Well, the first thing I heard was what I talked about earlier, was there were serious morale issues among both the faculty doctors and the faculty scientists. And there's no way to sugar-coat that. That was even before Dr. DePinho came. Then when he came, there were more morale issues that basically he brought with him. So I came about—I think about a year before Dr. DePinho. So there were serious issues that were part of a national trend that our faculty were experiencing when I first came. I would say on top of that, when Dr. DePinho came, his focus and his personality helped create more morale problems for faculty.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
You have a very interesting perspective, because you've been here through this time of transition in the institution. As I have, I started working with the institution in 2011.
Warren L. Holleman, PhD:
Yeah.
Recommended Citation
Holleman, Warren L. PhD and Rosolowski, Tacey A. PhD, "Chapter 11: The Faculty Health and Wellness Program: History and Evolution" (2017). Interview Chapters. 1085.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/1085
Conditions Governing Access
Open
