Chapter 01: Family and Educational Path in South Africa
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Description
Dr. Spitz begins this chapter by sketching her family background, her original dream of becoming a nuclear scientist, and her transition to medicine because her father thought the field was “transportable.”
She talks about her experiences as a woman in medical school in South Africa, where she was told she was “taking the place of a man” and where even nurses were unsupportive of women students and physicians. She explains that she and her husband, Lewis Berman, left South Africa because of their opposition to Apartheid. Dr. Spitz also notes that, at the time, she didn’t realize how submissive and deferential she was.
Next, Dr. Spitz sketches her educational background, noting stark differences between education for boys and the curriculum she followed at an all-girls high school, where no physics or chemistry was taught. She also notes the lack of mentoring she received, which has motivated her to serve as a mentor in her own professional life.
Turning to her medical education, Dr. Spitz notes that her clinical training in South Africa was “exceptional” (1966 Medicine, MB, BCh, University of Witwatersrand, Medical School, Johannesburg, South Africa). She tells an anecdote from her internship at the same University, where she turned down an internship with an anti-female surgeon and was blackballed.
Dr. Spitz then explains that she took a hiatus from work for a time after her daughter was born in 1968; she began to do research out of convenience and discovered she really liked it.
Identifier
SpitzM_01_20161013_C01
Publication Date
10-13-2016
Publisher
The Historical Resources Center, Research Medical Library, The University of Texas Cancer Center
City
Houston, Texas
Interview Session
Margaret Spitz, MD, Oral History Interview, October 13, 2016
Topics Covered
The Interview Subject's Story - Educational Path; Personal Background; Character, Values, Beliefs, Talents; Mentoring; On Mentoring; Experiences Related to Gender, Race, Ethnicity
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:
The time is about 9:16 on the 13th of October, 2016. And today I am at the Baylor College of Medicine in the Department of Epidemiology, is that correct?
Margaret Spitz, MD:
No.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
I’m sorry.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
At the moment it’s Molecular and Cellular Biology [Department of].
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
And Cellular Biology.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
But we’re moving to the Department of Medicine.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Oh, excellent.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
And we’ve actually already moved there as a section.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Oh, interesting. Okay.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
And it’s to be called the Section of Epidemiology and Population Sciences.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Okay. So that’s your current position, since 2010? Is that correct?
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Yes. About there, yes.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Okay. Female Voice Okay, well, I didn’t want to bother you.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Oops, we have—let me just put this on pause. (The recorder is paused.) All right. And we are recording again, after coffee was brought in and water, and we’re both grateful for that. So I wanted to just resume the identifier, and say I’m Tacey Ann Rosolowski. And today I’m interviewing Dr. Margaret R. Spitz for the Making Cancer History Voices Oral History Project, run by the Historical Resources Center at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. Dr. Spitz came to MD Anderson in 1981 as an assistant professor in the newly created Department of Cancer Prevention and Control in the Division of Cancer Medicine. Between 1995 and 2008, Dr. Spitz served as chair of the Department of Epidemiology. When she left the institution in 2010, she was a full professor in the Department of Epidemiology, in the Division of Cancer Prevention and Population Sciences. So I wanted to thank you for—
Margaret Spitz, MD:
It’s my pleasure.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
—yeah, joining me today, or allowing me to join you today.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Sure. I’m happy to do this. MD Anderson was my home away from home. I spent the happiest years of my career there.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Really?
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Absolutely no doubt about it.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Oh, that’s a wonderful statement to make.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
It’s a wonderful, nurturing environment.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Wow, that’s a wonderful statement to make. I usually start these interviews kind of in the traditional oral history place, which was, tell me where you were born, and when. And tell me a little bit about your family background.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Sure. Well, I—
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
And do feel like you can make yourself comfortable. This is an extremely sensitive audio recorder, so you can lean back, and no worries about pickup.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Okay. Well, I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa. My father was a physician, my brother is a physician. And I married in South Africa. My husband is also a physician, he’s a rheumatologist.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
And your husband’s name?
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Louis Berman. And we—
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Can I interrupt you just for a minute, and ask you your father’s name?
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Harry Spitz.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Spitz. And your mom?
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Sheila Spitz.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
And your brothers?
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Well, I have one brother, Irving Spitz, who now lives in Israel, Jerusalem, Israel. And I have a sister, Shirley Gamsu, and she lives in London, England. So we’re spread all over.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Gosh, you certainly are. Right. Now, obviously you grew up in kind of a medical family. How did that influence you?
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Well, it’s interesting. I wanted to become a nuclear scientist. I don’t think I really knew what it was.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Why did that capture your imagination?
Margaret Spitz, MD:
It just sounded so exciting, the whole concept of nuclear medicine, nuclear science, nuclear physics. My father, who had been born in Lithuania and had to flee the country and went to Germany to study medicine, he felt that I should study medicine, because one never knew about the future. He felt very insecure for many reasons. And he thought that medicine was a great, transportable profession. And he proved to be quite prophetic about that.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Now, was it unusual at the time for a father to be so supportive of a daughter who wanted to go into the sciences?
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Well, this was in the 1960s, and yes, in my medical school class of about 200, maybe there were seven [ ] women. And for the full six years, we went straight from high school to medical school. Sad to say we never had a traditional broad college education, which I think is a mistake. But for the six years, I was told very often that I was taking the place of a man, and I shouldn’t be there because the men needed the slot so that they could graduate and become physicians and support their families. And some women did drop out. It was certainly not a nurturing environment for women in those days. And the strangest part of all is that even the nurses were not supportive of the women medical students. For example, when we did our rotation in the Obstetrics hospital, the nurses used to help the men set up their trays, and so on. But they were very resistant to helping the women. It was a strange setup. But of course, the way they treated women paled in significance compared with the way the black people were treated in South Africa. And that was the reason, eventually, we left. We felt that in the apartheid system, there was very little future for us and our family.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
You are not the first person who was originally from South Africa who has told me that was the reason for leaving.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Yes. When we left South Africa in 1978, we came to America. It was at the height of the apartheid system still. We were fortunate, my husband was offered a job at the UT Health Science Center. And I just came along for the ride.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Can I interrupt you just in kind of moving forward with that story, and go back a little bit? Because I wanted to get a picture—first of all, I wanted to ask you, what were some of your reactions as a girl and young woman when people said that to you? About you taking a place of a man, or kind of being discouraging?
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Well, I kept very quiet about it. And I didn’t realize how submissive I was until I watched my own daughter, who went to medical school. And by the time she went to medical school, I think the class was 50 percent women. But she would not tolerate any thoughts of discrimination against women. And she was very vocal about it. And I thought, how different she was to my generation. We didn’t—we didn’t speak up. And sad to say, we didn’t speak up against the anti—or the apartheid system, either. For example, when we did pathology in our maybe third year of medical school, the black students—and there were only a handful in our class—they were not allowed to attend the post mortems of white patients. When I think about it now, I’m outraged. But we never said or did anything. And that is, I think, to some extent shameful. But we didn’t.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
How were your interests evolving? You said that you originally wanted to be a nuclear scientist, nuclear physicist.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Well, it’s another interesting story. I went to an all-girls’ high school, and we were not offered Physics and Chemistry as classes. We were only—we could study Biology and French. And the boys’ schools were not offered French. They did Physics and Chemistry. And I often wondered, what did the South African authorities think that men in France spoke? (laughter) It made no sense at all. So there I was a very good student in high school. When I arrived at medical school, I was so behind the ball, because I had never studied Physics and Chemistry. And it was an incredible struggle just to keep up. And I actually did consider dropping out. But I didn’t, and—
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
What made you stay?
Margaret Spitz, MD:
I’m not sure. Maybe just I didn’t want to admit defeat. And I weathered my way through it, and after the first year in the Physics and Chemistry, it was much easier.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Were there certain people that you found were kind of role models or inspirations for you at the time?
Margaret Spitz, MD:
I’ve never—you know, I tell students all the time that it’s so important to have role models and mentors. And I know it is important. But I’m afraid I never had such luck. Maybe I didn’t look hard enough to find a mentor, but I never really had outstanding role models. And I think that’s a deficit.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
You had to kind of go it alone.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Yes, I did.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Self-formation, you know.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Yes.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Which, I think, it happens to people. It really does.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Oh, but less so now.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
It was more the era that I grew up in.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Did that lack when you were in your formative time?
Margaret Spitz, MD:
It made me much more focused on helping junior people now. And in fact, now, my research career has ended. I only now spend my time helping the junior faculty, helping them with their grants. And I am the PI of a CPRIT training program in integrative epidemiology. And I’m recruiting post-docs, epidemiology post-docs, and helping train them to become state of the art, twenty-first century epidemiologists. And that’s exciting to me.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
It’s amazing how often people are inspired by negative models. (laughter)
Margaret Spitz, MD:
That’s right. Interesting, yes.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
It is, yes. So in medical school, then, why don’t we turn a little bit to that. In medical school, you talked about some of the—you know, your more or less pleasant memories about the situation there. How did you feel you were growing as a mind, as a physician, during that time?
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Well, the clinical training in South Africa was exceptional. We were actually taught to be hands-on physicians. Of course, there were no computers in those days, so we actually examined the patients carefully. We took a detailed history and were taught the importance of clinical signs and symptoms. So I think most of the physicians that came out of the medical school were extremely well-trained clinically. Maybe in terms of basic sciences, we weren’t as well-trained. And of course, the extent of the knowledge was not there at the time. This was in the 1960s, when you think how science has escalated since then. But certainly we were trained as great diagnosticians.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Interesting. I’m just checking a few dates here. Let’s see, you graduated—you got your medical degree in ’66?
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Yeah, so actually, we just are celebrating our fiftieth reunion. The [ ] reunion is in February, I was unable to go. But from all accounts, it was a great success. People came from all over the world. I would say more physicians have left the country than are still there, which is very sad for South Africa.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Has that created a kind of crisis? A shortage of physicians, or—?
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Well, there’s certainly a crisis in education in South Africa now, because there’s a lot of revolt and unrest in the universities, because many of the students are demanding free education. And the University of Cape Town has closed for the academic year. And at my university, which is the University of Witwatersrand, it is closed now, although they’re going to be reopening, I think, next week, or this week. So there’s certainly a lot of turmoil, and it can only have an adverse influence on training of academics.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Now tell me about after medical school. Residency, internship? Or internship, residency? And your choice of specialty at that time?
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Well, interesting. There was a—we had a professor of surgery who was very against women. He felt that the only women—he was a wonderful surgeon and a wonderful teacher, but he thought that the place of any women in the OR was as a nurse, not as a medical student. And his internship was really highly sought-after, and he usually took the top candidates. People vied to become appointed to his program. My brother had done it, and many others I knew had done it. They’d all tell me what a difficult experience it was, long hours, and a lot of excessive rules, and very little experience, on-the-job training. So a really unusual thing happened. I was contacted and offered, and asked to apply for his internship. And I decided not to do it, because I felt that I didn’t want to do it, A, and I wasn’t that interested in surgery, anyway. And I didn’t want to be exposed to such a brutal regimen. I hadn’t given thought to the fact that I was probably setting women’s issues back even further. I wasn’t mature enough to think broadly. And as a result, I was pretty much blackballed—is that the expression?
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
It was very difficult for me to get another internship. But I managed to get one, and I did Obstetrics and Gynecology. And then I did one in Internal Medicine.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Wow. Do you think that if you’d been in a place where you were looking more broadly at women’s issues, that you might have taken it? Or how would you have weighed that in that situation?
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Well, I suppose I still probably wouldn’t have taken it, because I probably wouldn’t have been very good at it. And it would have still set women’s issues back. So either way, it was a non-winning situation.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah, and a wise decision.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Probably. In retrospect, I have no regrets.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
But the interesting part is that many years later, I did some research on salivary gland cancers, and this was his area of expertise and interest. And I sent him some of my papers, and we had a very nice communication. So I felt that I had closed that circle.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah. God, what a strange interaction. And you still remember it so well.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Yes. Oh, it’s a long—50 years ago.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Now how did you feel your interests were evolving during that time? I mean, you know, did you have a sense that the entire world of medicine was open to you, except for surgery, which you didn’t want—
Margaret Spitz, MD:
No. What happened was, I got married and I had my daughter. I think she—in ’68, she was born. I actually didn’t work for a while, and then I only went back part-time to do some research. And then we moved to America. So when I came to America—
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Oh, but let me—
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Okay.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
—before you start that, let me ask you about the research piece. So when did your interest in research take place? I mean, I have to pick up that piece, because research has been so important to you.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Yes. Well, that was the only thing I could sort of do part-time, which is all I wanted to work, because I had little children at home. So it was more a matter of convenience than anything else.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Interesting.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
And in those days, there was a new type of microscope [electron microscope] I’m blocking on, and that’s what I was focusing on. I’ve always—I’m actually a frustrated pathologist. I would have loved to have done pathology.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Huh. Interesting. Why were you drawn to that area?
Margaret Spitz, MD:
I’ve always liked pathology. In fact, I tried to specialize in pathology when I came here, but I was told I couldn’t do it part-time. So I didn’t.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Interesting. A lot of pathologists I’ve interviewed have talked about their visual acuity. I guess, did you feel you had that too? That sort of ability to read slides? The “pathologist’s eye,” as they call it?
Margaret Spitz, MD:
I don’t know. I hadn’t thought of it that way. But I just loved looking at the cellular level. You know, we didn’t have such sophisticated microscopes. We had one eye microscopes in those days. And when I see the fantastic sophistication of the microscopes now, where you can train students, it’s just amazing and exciting.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah. It is amazing.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
And exciting.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
So what was it that you were doing research on during this time?
Margaret Spitz, MD:
It was at the—you know that I never published anything. It was only part-time. It was looking at—
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
It doesn’t matter. I guess a more important question would be, you know, what did you take away from that experience?
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Well, I enjoyed research. I really did enjoy it. It was something—I found it exciting. It’s interesting to delve deeply and to tell a story, to go from one finding to the next finding. Although I got no formal training in research there in South Africa at all. Nor did any of us, really, get training in how to conduct research. That only I learned later when I came to America.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
But you got the bug.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
I got the bug. That’s the way to put it, yes.
Recommended Citation
Spitz, Margaret R. MD and Rosolowski, Tacey A. PhD, "Chapter 01: Family and Educational Path in South Africa" (2016). Interview Chapters. 1585.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/1585
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