Chapter 07: Developing Nursing with an Endowment from the Argyros Family Foundation
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Description
In this first half of this session, Dr. Porter discusses how she is using an endowment of three million dollars from the Agyros Family Foundation to implement her vision for developing the Division of Nursing [Agyros Family Foundation Nursing Research Endowment]. Dr. Porter explains why it is important to develop the key facets of her vision: the academic and research infrastructure. She first notes that she is using funds to bring in nationally recognized nursing leaders to share information and to consult on how MD Anderson can develop nursing. She has submitted a proposal to hire a full professor of nursing research. She explains her logic: to develop nursing practice at MD Anderson and also to develop a community of nursing leadership within the institution and that has a high profile nationally as well.
Dr. Porter explains that the siloed culture at MD Anderson has held back this growth and she talks about her strategies to work around it. She explains the many successes that the division has had recently –all indications that this long term strategy is paying off. As an example, she discusses how she has begun nominating MD Anderson nurses to be fellows of the American Academy of Nursing, noting that Gary Brydges is the first “home grown” nurse to be honored in this way.
Identifier
PorterC_03_20180706_C07
Publication Date
7-6-2018
City
Houston, Texas
Interview Session
Carol Porter, DNP, RN, FAAN, Oral History Interview, July 06, 2018
Topics Covered
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center - Building the Institution; Leadership; On Leadership; The Researcher; Building/Transforming the Institution; Fundraising, Philanthropy, Donations, Volunteers; On the Nature of Institutions; Working Environment; 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
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Okay, so our counter is moving and I’m laughing because we’ve already started talking, as we always do. It is July 6, 2018, and I’m in the office of Dr. Carol Porter, Chief Nursing Officer, for our third session together.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
+ We’ve started talking about an important endowment that nursing received, the Argyros—is that how you pronounce it?
Carol Porter, DNP, RN, FAAN:
Argyros, I think.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Argyros Family Foundation Nursing Research Endowment. Okay. And what was the year that was received?
Carol Porter, DNP, RN, FAAN:
I don’t have it right in front of me, but I believe it was 2013.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Okay, 2013. And you were talking about the disposition. Can you share how much it was?
Carol Porter, DNP, RN, FAAN:
Five million.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Wow, okay.
Carol Porter, DNP, RN, FAAN:
The initial discussions were in 2013. I believe initial document was in 2013, but it was not finalized until 2016. I came here in October and it could have been end of 2016 or early 2017, when Tom Buchholz [oral history interview] pulled me into this discussion and then we had a couple of calls with the representative of the family, about the endowment. It changed a little bit from the initial document. An initial document was to endow a chair of nursing, but after my assessment coming in and looking at the department, which is the Academic Department of Nursing, we were not ready to endow, to bring a chair, into that department, because we needed to focus on building a stronger infrastructure for research. So upon discussion with the family representative, it was supposed to be two million to a post-doc fellowship, a million, administrative costs, and two million for an endowed chair. So we asked that we use that two million that was earmarked for endowed chair, to become the research endowment, so that we could build the research and then eventually go for a chair. So I would say some time before Tom went to California, probably early last year, the document was signed and changed to that, that was an addendum. So we still have the post-doc fellowship money, the administrative cost money, and now the two million for the endowment for the research. We have started to bring in high level visiting scholars, like Dr. Joyce Fitzpatrick. We had, under this program, we brought in—and we have an ongoing two-year relationship with Joyce Fitzpatrick now, to help us build research. We recently brought in Dr. Joyce Black. She’s a nurse researcher, nationally known in skincare, because of the vulnerable population that we serve and some of the drugs, the skin toxicities and radiation therapies are a unique population, so she’s going to help us. She spent two days, I want to say two weeks ago, and I’m going to give her a call and see if she’ll come maybe every quarter for the next year to help us. She’s very interested, and I think as much as we were interested in her, she’s interested in us now so it’s great, it’s a perfect match.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
That’s great, that is great, yes. Hopefully, we’ll be able to capture her in an interview as well.
Carol Porter, DNP, RN, FAAN:
Yes. Well, I will give you the dates that she’s coming back.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Absolutely.
Carol Porter, DNP, RN, FAAN:
This is all under the umbrella of Argyros. Anyway and then we—it hadn’t been approved yet, but I’ve discussed it at a faculty meeting, about putting forth a proposal for a full professor of nursing research. That would be the first time that we would ever have one at MD Anderson, if they approve it.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Why is that important, to build the research dimension of nursing here?
Carol Porter, DNP, RN, FAAN:
Well, I mean MD Anderson is the number one cancer research facility in the world, and the majority of that is based on physician research, and we are really in the beginning stages of nursing research. It’s not connected, so we have pockets of great nursing research, but it just hasn’t been connected together. If I’m able to bring a nurse, a full professor, which means somebody that is well known across the country, if I’m able to recruit someone like that, then everywhere that nurse researchers live at MD Anderson can be a dotted line to this head of nursing research. That person, if he or she is a very high level researcher, can teach, coordinate, has a vision, guide, that’s what we need right now. We need that for the post-doc fellow ship of the Argyros Foundation, we need somebody like that, to lead that post-doc fellowship. So, it would be a great opportunity for somebody to establish a true coordinated research program in nursing research, of course MD Anderson, to start the post-doc fellowship on oncology. It would be a wonderful career opportunity for somebody, so I’m really, really, really hoping.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Well it sounds like things are, as always, the pieces have to be set in place, a slow process.
Carol Porter, DNP, RN, FAAN:
Yeah, I mean, so I’m very pleased that we got this far and now we have to just wait for final approval. Everybody has been shaking their heads yes, not saying the word but shaking their heads, and they understand why it’s necessary. It would also give us a place on the national nursing research presence across the United States, because right now, we just have a spotty kind of presence. We have some great researchers. Lori Williams is an example. She is an RN, she’s a researcher, and her area of expertise is symptom management, but she wasn’t connected. And I’m not saying reporting structure, I’m saying practice. So it doesn’t matter who your boss is, but you come together around nursing research. She’s very—you know, I just spoke to her yesterday, she’s tremendous, and so my bringing a professor of research in, all these people would want to come together, so it would be a whole new phase for us, it would be wonderful.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
What kind of impact would that have, that kind of more integrated, connected community that you’re envisioning? How would that affect how nurses have an interface with all the other research that’s going on at MD Anderson? Is that part of the equation as well?
Carol Porter, DNP, RN, FAAN:
Yes. I’m glad you said community, because we have a community of nursing leadership meeting, but I would like to have a community of nursing research, so that all the researchers, wherever they are, could be on inpatient ambulatory, in faculty departments, et cetera, would come together and share best practices and kind of mentor each other. Yes, I mean nurse researchers are very respected by MD researchers and PhD researchers. It’s just that I really believe, again, it’s my opinion, that it’s more because—it’s not because they didn’t want to work together; it’s because they don’t even know each other exists. Every time I talk about nursing research with physicians, they are all interested. So I believe once we organize it a little bit better, maybe by—if we get the position approved, if we can attract somebody within the next I don’t know, eight months or so, maybe by this time next year we’ll be on our way to really connect that, so that a skilled expert nurse researcher professor would be able to come up with a plan, look at all the cancer institutes, find out where the areas are that nurses could best serve to improve research. Symptom management is a very big research area, survivorship is another one, nurses played great roles in those, and then also, we would have a bigger connection with the NINR, the National Institute of Nursing Research from the NIH, which is another, that’s another thing we’re trying to do. Under the Argyros Foundation, every year the NINR in Washington, has a one-day gala, where all of the major nursing researchers from all over the country but also some from other countries, come together in Washington, and it’s a big gala and then there’s a whole dinner meeting with awards and information, a very big deal. We really haven’t had a major presence there, so this year, thanks so the Argyros Foundation, we’re going to sponsor a table at that gala, so it’s going to be known to NINR, that MD Anderson is there. We’re going to sponsor people going to that gala, so that they can be there and experience that meet, mingle with top researchers across the country, so that will be a learning experience, and get interested in the NINR. It’s like it’s unfolding, it’s kind of exciting. There’s so many layers to it, but it’s starting to have some groundswell to it. Then, so the connection would be—break down the silos, communicate out to the organization, have an experienced, well-known nurse researcher as our lead. That person would be at research meetings that we currently are not at, and be able to see where nurses can assist other cancer researchers, at a researcher level, and then also bring in the up and coming, the clinical nurses or the APRNs, who are in the beginning of their careers, who may be thinking professionally, that this is an area they want to go into, and kind of mentor and guide nurses. I think it would be great for attracting nurses to MD Anderson as well, because now you have not only the mission of MD Anderson, “end cancer,” but you also have professional growth by a named researcher. So I think it’s going to be wonderful, it would be wonderful.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah.
Carol Porter, DNP, RN, FAAN:
Now, any time we have like a visiting scholar or any grand rounds, we’re trying to name it under Argyros, so that we have an umbrella, we have an endowment, because a lot of this would not be possible without that endowment.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
It also helps, I mean even if—I mean the name is sort of intriguing, people would look twice at it. I think also, announcing that it has this substantial funding, I think attracts people’s attention, like wow, this is something new, let me even read this email or whatever.
Carol Porter, DNP, RN, FAAN:
Right. I don’t know, again I wasn’t here, but there’s never been a formal announcement of the Argyros Foundation endowment. So we’ve been—we use it, but we need to—we’re trying to work with Development, to say let’s pick a date and let’s just make a formal announcement. Maybe they were waiting until we had a little bit more, this is when we’ll be done with it, and I think that by the end of this year, we can show that because of this, we’re starting to move up the ladder on research. We’ve submitted a report, year-to-date, what we’ve done, and that could be the reason that we haven’t, but even if we don’t announce it this year, we should announce it next year’s nursing week, or something like that.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah, yeah, for sure. Let me ask you this question, which comes a little bit from my own experience, because I too have experienced this issue of doing something that’s cool and intriguing to people and then when I talk to them people say yeah, wow, that’s here, we could do that? And really, the geological pace at which information about that spreads out, do you find—because you’ve had experience at a number of institutions. Is this an institutional situation in general or is it particularly pronounced here at MD Anderson, in having these silos and these little corners of activities?
Carol Porter, DNP, RN, FAAN:
Oh, I think any large organization, healthcare or not, you’re going to find silos. It’s not done for a negative reason, I think it’s done to get work done. But then I think, as the workplace has changed, silos were probably more embraced years ago, but now everything is interprofessional. It used to be, earlier in my career, it was nursing did their own meeting and physicians did their own meeting, and respiratory therapists did their own meeting. Now, when we look at any kind of improvement, there’s one of everybody, which is so much healthier. So I think it might just be a sign of the workforce changing, and so now, people seek out multidisciplinary members of teams, which always works better, because everybody has a different perspective. I even like to put somebody on—
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
I’m going to close the door real quick.
Carol Porter, DNP, RN, FAAN:
Yeah, sure, sure.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
I’m sorry. You like to put?
Carol Porter, DNP, RN, FAAN:
I like to include members of—we put a team together for improvement. Sometimes I like to put a member of the—pick a member that is not a content expert at all, because they’ll ask questions that we wouldn’t ask. It’s like students. Students are great because they ask you a question that you probably haven’t thought about for twenty years, and it’s always a great question, like why do we do that? So I usually tell people that work for me that if you find yourself on a committee and you can’t figure out why, it’s because you don’t have content expertise, but it’s good that you don’t, so ask the questions.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Oh yeah, yeah, that’s interesting.
Carol Porter, DNP, RN, FAAN:
Yeah, yeah, I like that.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Exactly, exactly, the fresh perspective, outside the box. It’s really important.
Carol Porter, DNP, RN, FAAN:
Yeah. And then even working with process engineers, that was not totally embraced by nurses, but process engineers are great because they have no clinical experience and they ask all the right questions.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Well, I’m glad we chatted about that.
Carol Porter, DNP, RN, FAAN:
Yeah. So it’s exciting.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
It is very exciting.
Carol Porter, DNP, RN, FAAN:
It’s exciting.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Would you like to transition now?
Carol Porter, DNP, RN, FAAN:
You know what, let me add one more thing, because is along that same line. American Academy of Nursing, I think we’ve talked about it before, is the highest level of an organization for nursing in the country. To be a fellow of the American Academy of Nursing, I want to say out of about three million nurses, about seventeen hundred are fellows. So it’s very prestigious, you have to meet a lot of criteria, you have to have done things out of your scope of service, so it’s not just what you do in your job, it’s how you impact nurses in the community, in the country, in the world, how you make a difference in different ways. Anyway, Barbara Summers was a fellow. I don’t know whether she came here as a fellow or became a fellow while she was here. I came here as a fellow but there’s no fellows of the academy at MD Anderson. So, my goal is to—I can sponsor two a year, but my goal is to sponsor as many MD Anderson nurses that qualify, to get them in. Garry Brydges, that’s B-R-Y-D-G-E-S, Garry Brydges, he’s the head of our CRNA group, nurse anesthetists, and very accomplished in his profession, from creating a website that I think over seventeen hundred CRNAs use around the world. He goes to Washington, he testified on opioid use, et cetera. He’s the president of the CRNA organization for the country, I mean he’s really accomplished, so I sponsored him, along with a professor from outside, and he just got notified that he got in.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Oh, wow.
Carol Porter, DNP, RN, FAAN:
So this is, I’m very excited, because he is our first homegrown, MD Anderson nurse, that will be a fellow of the academy. So in November, I think it’s like the third or fourth of November of 2018, he’ll be inducted. So that’s a very big deal, because that’s going to show the nursing group here that okay, it’s not just talk, we’re starting, because I’m going to look for my next two for next year, and I’m looking at people in nursing and outside nursing, that are nurses. So that’s a very big deal, because what it does for the country is it puts us on that map.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
That is very exciting.
Carol Porter, DNP, RN, FAAN:
So it’s very—it’s all these little pieces that have to come together, but it’s exciting. Now we can change the topic. [laughter]
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
No, that’s terrific, and I think it really does kind of bring it full circle, because we started this conversation with all the little bitty pieces that the Foundation enabled.
Carol Porter, DNP, RN, FAAN:
Yes.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
And then here are the little spots where okay, success here, success here, and slowly but surely, they’re all going to make this great mosaic that makes the vision come into being.
Carol Porter, DNP, RN, FAAN:
Right. You have to just make sure you realize the little achievements.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Along the way, yeah.
Carol Porter, DNP, RN, FAAN:
All along the way. Then, Garry takes that back to his community. I was in the OR this morning, the OR meeting, and told Anesthesia and the surgeons about it, so they’re going to celebrate. So it’s like all this—it’s great.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Absolutely and it motivates people, because people in the frontlines really need to see that the vision is working, that it’s taking shape.
Carol Porter, DNP, RN, FAAN:
And that there’s a pathway, and that somebody they know is in. It’s great.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Yes. I think that’s a mistake, I mean I’m kind of watching a couple of things happening in the institution right now where there are really high level planning meetings and they’re all great, but okay, I’m concerned that this information—a lot of people know these meetings are taking shape and there’s a lot of cynicism, like oh yeah, they’re talking about this, it’s never going to happen, it’s never going to affect us.
Carol Porter, DNP, RN, FAAN:
Right.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
And so people need those little bits of information along the line, to say yes there is movement, yes we’re doing stuff at a pretty high level, but look at these concrete things that really are having an impact for you.
Carol Porter, DNP, RN, FAAN:
We’re doing an Employee Notes article on Garry.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Cool.
Carol Porter, DNP, RN, FAAN:
Also, we have a couple other recent accomplishments by nursing. We have a new communications person and she’s helping us to get the word out so that we need to celebrate people who are accomplishing things.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah, absolutely.
Carol Porter, DNP, RN, FAAN:
Because it’s not just good for their career but it’s good for MD Anderson, it’s good for the patients.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Absolutely, absolutely. Now we’ll change the subject.
Recommended Citation
Porter, Carol DNP, RN, FAAN and Rosolowski, Tacey A., "Chapter 07: Developing Nursing with an Endowment from the Argyros Family Foundation" (2018). Interview Chapters. 1381.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/1381
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