Chapter 17: Global Academic Programs: The Big Picture and New Partnerships in Africa
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Description
Dr. Bogler begins this Chapter by explaining the working philosophy of Global Academic Programs: GAP is part of the MD Anderson infrastructure, a platform where collaborations are facilitated without determine exactly what activities take place.
He then briefly mentions two institutions in Thailand that will become partners and explains the strategic opportunities they can afford MD Anderson. He also explains that they put into action Dr. Ronald DePinho’s idea of “lives touched.”
Dr. Bogler next explains that international activities at MD Anderson are integrated through an International Advisory Board.
He goes on to explain that with partnerships, MD Anderson is developing cancer initiatives in Africa, where there was no previous activity. He explains the “gap” that exists between MD Anderson and African institutions and that he has been long working on the “puzzle” of how to build collaborations. With the recent development of the African Cancer Network, Dr. Bogler feels the institution can look forward to a strong and active program.
Dr. Bogler says that “this is the power of MD Anderson—the ability to motivate, concentrate, and focus in a way that’s almost magical.”
Identifier
BoglerO_02_20141117_C017
Publication Date
11-10-2014
Publisher
The Historical Resources Center, Research Medical Library, The University of Texas Cancer Center
City
Houston, Texas
Interview Session
Oliver Bogler, PhD, Oral History Interview, November 17, 2014
Keywords
An Institutional Unit; Institutional Processes; Beyond the Institution; Global Issues –Cancer, Health, Medicine; Building/Transforming the Institution; Multi-disciplinary Approaches; Research, Care, and Education; Understanding the Institution; Leadership; Institutional Mission and Values; The Business of MD Anderson; The MD Anderson Brand, Reputation; Cultural/Social Influences; Global Issues –Cancer, Health, Medicine; This is MD Anderson; Healing, Hope, and the Promise of Research
Topics Covered
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center - An Institutional Unit; Institutional Processes; Beyond the Institution; Global Issues –Cancer, Health, Medicine; Building/Transforming the Institution; Multi-disciplinary Approaches; Research, Care, and Education; Understanding the Institution; Leadership; Institutional Mission and Values; The Business of MD Anderson; The MD Anderson Brand, Reputation; Cultural/Social Influences; Global Issues –Cancer, Health, Medicine; This is MD Anderson; Healing, Hope, and the Promise of Research
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
Oliver Bogler, PhD:
For me, the dominant strategy is really to think of GAP as a platform. That’s how I think of it. I actually don’t believe that it’s my role, or even the GAP team’s role, to determine what activities happen on the platform. I think that’s for the faculty to decide, or ultimately the institutional leadership. Dr. DePinho has certainly seized opportunities for the Moon Shots to work on this platform and so on. What we really created is a platform. I see it as a part of our institutional infrastructure. And so sometimes we have these debates with our oversight group, who when we present a new institution, they want to see strategy. Now, we do show them strategy in the sense that we show them the strategic opportunities. For example, we have let the two latest institutions join our—both institutions in Thailand, in Bangkok, two very significant partners there, came forward at the same time. It’s a little unusual, but they both joined the Network. But both of them are in themselves networks. One of them is a single institution with thirty, forty hospitals, not only in Thailand, but in Southeast Asia, and the other one is in itself a little network with similar presence in that region. So one of the strategic opportunities these partners bring us is not just connectivity to Thailand, but also beyond that to other parts of Southeast Asia. So Dr. DePinho’s concept of lives touched and opportunities, that could be huge. We could do research potentially down the road with these partners that would be very far-reaching. So that kind of strategic opportunity we very clearly discuss and identify. When the oversight team says to me, “Well, what’s the strategy for the Network?” I basically say—and I’ve said this for four years, and so far no one has fired me over it—“I see it as an opportunity. I see it as our job is to build a platform that’s as broad and inclusive as possible and offers as many opportunities to our faculty as possible.” I don’t know what the next professor who comes through my door wants to do, and I don’t think it’s my job to say [unclear] the Network for these folks but not for these folks. So I see that as a really fundamental philosophy, and I recognize that not everybody shares that. The last thing I’d like to touch upon is—let me say one more thing in that context, and then I’ll move on to the last thing. Recently, in collaboration with some colleagues in the Cancer Network, we have organized our Advisory Board. So we used to have one just for the GAP program. It’s now been renamed as the International Advisory Board, and at the request of the president and the provost, this board oversees or advises on all the international activities at MD Anderson, so not just what we’re doing, but what the Cancer Network is now beginning to do, but also other programs like the Oncology Expert Advisor and so on that have international reach. So I think this is a great step forward for us all because it provides an integration point for all these activities, so when we present our sister institutions, it’s not just GAP in the room, but it’s also Amy Hay and her group. Amy and I co-chair this Advisory Board. But the philanthropy group’s there, the Cancer Network’s there, so we’re all seeing more of what everybody else is doing, which is important because—and, of course, behind the scenes we’re coordinating all the time and connecting all the time, but I think that’s a great step forward. The last thing I’ll mention in the context of GAP is that one of the puzzles that I noticed when I joined was that when you looked at the map, there was nothing in Africa. And why is that? And I think fundamentally the reason is that the mode that we work in is, as I’ve described all along, it’s faculty-driven and it’s largely peer-to-peer kind of collaboration. So even when we are working with partner institutions in low- and middle-income countries, they are the dominant cancer partner. They’re sophisticated people in the cancer world. They may not have the absolutely latest technology that we have. Many of them do, but they may not. But they’re expert-trained people. These are clinicians who are specialized in cancer and so on. They’re really our peers. In Africa, for the most part, particularly Sub-Saharan Africa, that really doesn’t exist, with the exception of South Africa, and so that model that we have, it doesn’t work. And if you look at what other institutions are doing in global health, it’s a very different model. It’s built often out of a medical school. It’s built out of a tropical medicine program. It’s built with medical students and so on. And all these are ingredients that we don’t have. So our global health programs are very different. We’re also not a School of Public Health, right? We are a Cancer Center. So one of the puzzles I’ve been working on for the last couple of years is how do we do something that’s meaningful and useful in that, given those differences in our program and given also the constraints that that places on us. I think we’ve made some good progress. One of the first steps was to collect faculty with interest and expertise in this area, so we have something we loosely call the Africa Committee, which we grew sort of organically by word of mouth, people declaring their interest. There’s about forty or so faculty on that group now, meets once a month. And we’ve made some significant progress in the last few years. We’ve now partnered with the African Cancer Institute, which is a new entity at Stellenbosch University in South Africa, and we also have a partnership with the UICC, the International Union for Cancer Control, and together with them we’re exploring opportunities to build capacity in Sub-Saharan Africa. We’ve probably picked Zambia and Mozambique as initial countries to think about working in, and we’re planning workshops for the spring to really nail down the details of that project. We’ve taken a very collaborative approach, so we’ve networked with the National Cancer Institute and ASCO and the Fred Hutch in Seattle and AACR—I mean, excuse me, Harvard. And we’ve talked to a bunch of people at various [unclear]. I’m actually going on Wednesday to the Pink Ribbon Red Ribbon board meeting. That’s a group that’s trying to leverage AIDS investment in PEPFAR into cancer work in Africa. They are, themselves, connected with many governmental organizations and nonprofits and the Gates Foundation and so on. So we’ve really invested a lot of time and effort in networking, trying to not do anything that doesn’t fit with what’s already going on, and trying very hard to do something thoughtful, and we’ve connected also with some several of the First Ladies who were in Africa, who are well organized as a group. So we’ve had the First Lady of South Africa was at the GAP meeting two years ago. The First Lady of Mozambique was in Korea with us. We’re inviting several First Ladies for next year’s meeting. So we’re getting a lot of connectivity there. So it’s been very promising, and I’m excited because I think we’re hopefully going to come up with a good program that will actually not just bring MD Anderson to this activity, but actually our Network. Many of our partners are very interested, and actually many of them are more experienced than we are at working in Africa. But this is one of the powers of MD Anderson that certainly I’ve discovered, and I’m honored to have represented Anderson in the GAP work. We have as an institution, as a really strong institution in this face, we have the ability to motivate and focus and concentrate effort in a way that’s almost magical. So sometimes just, I think, by being there and urging collaboration and bringing people together around a problem, we can catalyze things, even if it’s not necessarily our people on the ground doing stuff. So that’s a body of work that I initiated maybe two, almost three years ago now, and I haven’t quite seen the completion of it, so I hope to stay involved with GAP long enough to at least see that component. We’re now working on a—just for the historical record—where Dr. Dmitrovsky is recruiting a Vice Provost for Clinical and Integrated Programs, and the plan is that this person will take over leadership for the GAP team when they’re recruited.
Recommended Citation
Rosolowksi, Tacey A. PhD and Bogler, Oliver PhD, "Chapter 17: Global Academic Programs: The Big Picture and New Partnerships in Africa" (2014). Interview Chapters. 1579.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/1579
Conditions Governing Access
Open
