Chapter 21: Service to National and International Organization and a Small Cancer Center
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Description
In this Chapter, Dr. Levin describes his service on various national and international organizations. He begins by describing the structure, mission, and funding of the World Gastroenterology Organization and briefly explains the value of bringing together professionals who can compare notes on how training and patient care are approached in regions around the world with very different resources. He describes how funding for this organization began to dry up, at which point he was invited to Chair the first Foundation that would continue the work of the WGO, specifically funding training programs around the world. He doesn’t feel he was effective as a fundraiser and glad to hand the job over to Haman Quigley from Cork after four years. He explains that the organization has online materials, thirteen training centers around the world and “Teach the Trainers” session held regularly to train gastroenterologists around the world.
Dr. Levin then talks about his role as president of the Society of Gastrointestinal Carcinogenesis, describing the focus of the organization and the reality that a lack of resources limits its activities. Next, he briefly describes his role on the American Cancer Society Task Force as well as his service, in 2008, as interim Director of the Vermont Cancer Center.
[NOTE: there is a period of silence here while Dr. Levin takes a call and the recorder remains running.]
Identifier
LevinB_02_20130208_C21
Publication Date
2-8-2013
City
Houston, Texas
Interview Session
Bernard Levin, MD, Oral History Interview, February 08, 2013
Topics Covered
The Interview Subject's Story - Professional Service beyond MD Anderson Activities Outside Institution The Administrator The Educator Global Issues –Cancer, Health, Medicine
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
Bernard Levin, MD:
We were talking WGO Foundation.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Right.
Bernard Levin, MD:
The World Gastroenterology Organization has been around many years, and I was approached by some colleagues to consider helping raise funds for the World Gastroenterology Organization which is a—as implied—has membership of many of the GI societies from around the world. It used to be an organization that came together in the form of a world congress every four years, and people would get together and discuss the science and practice of gastroenterology as viewed from an international perspective and would then have a good time and break. It would be funded by the endoscopic and pharmaceutical companies who would see value in this gathering every four years, bringing attention to their product.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Now when you say seeing this field from the international perspective, what do you mean? What does that—it may sound obvious but I’m just wanting to know how you—
Bernard Levin, MD:
Each particular constituent organization has its own view of its purpose and its goals and achievements. This varies from country to country. There are some commonalities and also some major differences between the haves and the have-nots and somewhat. Coming together to discuss mutual problems was beneficial, and to hear about research being done in other parts of the world and clinical problems in other parts of the world was educationally enlightening. There were certainly many well-known figures who delighted in coming to these meetings, and there were people who had often had significant roles in education of gastroenterologists in their countries or regions. This funding mechanism for the World Gastroenterology Organization started to fade as money started to dry up from endoscope manufacturers and from the pharmaceutical industry. The pipeline for new drugs was significantly diminished in gastroenterology. So it was felt that possibly another mechanism—namely a foundation to continue the work of the WGO, not to have meetings but to provide a strong educational basis for training in developing countries—would be desirable. So I was the person who was invited to be the first chair of this foundation, and I had appointed for me individuals representing a number of other countries; also, a patient advocate and a couple of consumers. We initially had a management agency—a secretariat in Munich. Subsequently, when this was found to be unaffordable, a successor secretariat in Milwaukee—who currently is the—and I found that raising money is very hard work, and I did not feel that I was actually terribly successful in this role as chair of the foundation. The reasons for the difficulty in raising money are probably too complex for today’s discussion. After four years, I was glad to hand over the reins to Eamonn Quigley—then from Cork Island, who through his various contacts and personality and research had a wide array of contacts in the pharmaceutical industry and I’m glad to say has restored the foundation to good health.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
So what is its impact, do you believe?
Bernard Levin, MD:
Well, there are about 13 training centers throughout the world who train gastroenterologists—budding gastroenterologists in techniques of gastroenterology. There are also educational sessions called Teach the Trainers where educators are taught how to teach by masters of the field. There are online materials that are very useful for providing education because everyone can go online, and there are guidelines that are provided in what are called cascade formation. At the top level would be the elite, wealthy countries that can use most high-tech technology, and then as one goes down the cascade, you get to lower and less developed but equally—or almost equally effective methodologies to detect or treat a condition.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Are there some impacts that you hope that this organization will have that it hasn’t yet taken up?
Bernard Levin, MD:
I think the training is now being extended to parts of Africa, and that’s personally of great appeal to me, having been from that part of the world.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Absolutely. Yeah. What are some of the other committees and initiatives that you’ve—
Bernard Levin, MD:
I was president of the International Society of Gastrointestinal Carcinogenesis, which is a small group of people getting together each year—or every second year—and primarily had its inspiration from some Japanese investigators, and then European and US and other countries signed on. These are people primarily interested in the biology of GI cancer—some very distinguished individuals. Almost by default, I became president and enjoyed the contact, but again, a limiting factor was the ability to raise money to host the biannual meeting. Luckily, it was helped significantly by the Office of Meetings at MD Anderson, who actually played a huge role in making the meeting for which I was responsible in Hawaii a relative success. We did better than break even.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Again, what do you feel the impact of this particular organization is?
Bernard Levin, MD:
Probably relatively little, other than promoting goodwill between researchers around the world.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
But I imagine—like all professional organizations—I mean—it gives rise to collaboration, circulation of information—
Bernard Levin, MD:
Oh, yes—all of those undoubtedly are valid, yes.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Right. Okay. Others? I don’t know if we spoke in any detail about the American Cancer Society National Advisory Task Force on Colorectal Cancer.
Bernard Levin, MD:
Yes. That was the basis for my being chair of the guidelines committee.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Okay.
Bernard Levin, MD:
It’s something I did for a number of years, and we would have semi-annual meetings to discuss the status of screening, as well as other initiatives. Also ancillary support for people with colorectal cancer and research into the biology of colorectal cancer to some extent fell under its purview. But mostly it was screening related.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Is there anything—is there anything else?
Bernard Levin, MD:
No. I don’t think so.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
There is the 2008 interim directorship of the University of Vermont Comprehensive Care Center. Is that something you would like to address?
Bernard Levin, MD:
Yes. That was an interesting challenge. I was approached to do a consultation soon after I arrived in New York on the status of the—(phone ringing)
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
I’m going to leave this on.
Bernard Levin, MD:
(takes phone call)
Bernard Levin, MD:
So we’re still blinking—
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
No. I just left it on record. So I—yeah—we’re still recording.
Bernard Levin, MD:
Right. Okay.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
So we’re good—okay.
Bernard Levin, MD:
We were talking about—
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
You were talking about the interim directorship.
Bernard Levin, MD:
Yeah. So I was asked by a friend to consider looking at this cancer center, which was about to lose its comprehensive status. So to provide this consultation, I asked my friend, David Hohn, who had been president of Roswell Park and with whom I had a friendship going back thirty-plus years and who had also been at MD Anderson as Vice President for Clinical Programs. We went together to render this consultation, and afterwards the dean asked me if I would be willing to act as interim director of the cancer center. My goals were very limited. It was really mostly to help them limp over the loss of the comprehensive status, and that was occasioned by the fact that they—that faculty had disappeared, morale was very low, programs had to reduce substantially in size and number, and there was no hope whatsoever of renewing their grant. I—I suppose—was the person who delivered the bad news but also explored with them new recruitments and the need for a new director, which wasn’t to be me because I was not interested in that at that point in my life. It was an illuminating experience because I went from perhaps the world’s largest and arguably the best comprehensive cancer center to the nation’s smallest comprehensive cancer center, which was about to become defunct as of comprehensive status—in its comprehensive center. I learned the difficulties of working in a matrix environment, because the support the cancer center needed from the adjacent clinical center wasn’t forthcoming, and the personality of the individual directing this left—in my mind—a lot to be desired. After about eight months, I felt that I had done as much as I could—that what it needed was a vigorous recruitment for a new director, substantial infusion of new funds, new faculty, and an honest attempt to get back on the ladder of the comprehensive cancer center network, but recognized that would take somebody three to five years, and I certainly wasn’t interested in doing that. Besides, winter was coming in Vermont.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
And you’ve already said you find winter in New York a little challenging.
Bernard Levin, MD:
That was more than a little. It was a good experience.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
And very generous of you to take that on post-retirement.
Bernard Levin, MD:
Well, I did get paid for it. But I felt actually at the end that I was costing them much more than I was delivering, so I encouraged them to think about having someone else, and there was someone who had retired not long before I got there who was there—the head of HemOnc there, and he lived in the area. I thought for the amount of work it would take, he could quite adequately do the job, until they had done this recruitment. That’s another story for another time is how long it took them to do the recruitment and why.
Recommended Citation
Levin, Bernard MD and Rosolowski, Tacey A. PhD, "Chapter 21: Service to National and International Organization and a Small Cancer Center" (2013). Interview Chapters. 1357.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/1357
Conditions Governing Access
Open
