Chapter 03: A Job in a New Department and Research Successes
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Description
Dr. Spitz begins by noting that she received her MPH from the University of Texas School of Public Health in 1981 and began to look at job offers. This was when Guy Newell offered her an assistant professorship in the new Department of Cancer Prevention and Control. She briefly sketches Dr. Charles LeMaistre’s vision of cancer prevention.
Next, Dr. Spitz tells the story of discovering salivary gland cancer, which led to several publications, then her work linking parental occupations and pediatric neuroblastoma. The latter work gave her exposure. She then discusses her study of lung cancer and mutations to the p53 gene in Mexican Americans and African-Americans. She notes that this study marked the beginning of her real success.
Identifier
SpitzM_01_20161013_C03
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 - The Researcher; MD Anderson History; Joining MD Anderson; Educational Path; Discovery and Success; Building the Institution; Discovery, Creativity and Innovation
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:
Now tell me, so you got your master’s, and I’m just quickly checking—
Margaret Spitz, MD:
In 1981.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Nineteen eighty-one. Okay.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Then what did I do?
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
What did you do at that point?
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Well, I had two job offers straight away. One was with Texaco as an occupational physician. And I even went to interview in White Plains, New York, and I was offered the job.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Oh, interesting.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
And I was thinking of taking it, but they refused to give me any flexibility in hours. So I didn’t take it. Then I was offered a job by Guy Newell, who was chairman of—I think it was called the Department of Cancer Prevention and Control. It was in the division of, I think, Medicine, I don’t know what it was called. Maybe Cancer Medicine in those days.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
I actually have it on the—let’s see. It was—yes. In the Department of Cancer Prevention and Control—
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Control.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Division of Medicine—
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Medicine.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
—at that time.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Yes.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
And it’s just—for the record, there have been so many name changes—
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Yes.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
—at MD Anderson.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
That’s right. And so I took that. And he took me on faith, because my resume was like one page, double-spaced. I always tell people I had no publications. And I’m quite amazed that he even hired me. And I was given the position of assistant professor, non-tenure track, part-time.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Now you’ve mentioned, you know, a few times people offering you these jobs. I’m thinking of the surgeon who offered—who wanted you to apply. And now Guy Newell kind of taking you on faith. When you look back and kind of see that young woman, what do you think they saw that made them want to take a chance, or thought, yeah, this is a caring person?
Margaret Spitz, MD:
I’m not sure, because I don’t think in those days I had much to offer. I’m often quite astounded by it. And I wonder if I would have hired me. Something I’ve thought about.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah, interesting. Now tell me about this department that you were stepping into.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Okay. Well, Guy had come from the NCI, where he had been, I think, deputy director. And there was at that time only one other faculty in the department, and that was Barbara Tilley. I think she’s a biostatistician. I think she’s currently at the School of Public Health.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
When was the department actually founded?
Margaret Spitz, MD:
I think shortly, it may be in ’80 or ’81, I don’t know, they didn’t tell us.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Because it was shortly after Charles LeMaistre began.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Yes. Yes.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Okay?
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Yes, I—and I have to tell you that Charles LeMaistre had this wonderful vision about cancer prevention. And I think all the success in the current division is owed to the vision of Charles LeMaistre. So but when I started, we were physically located in what’s now, I think, is it still called the Smith Building—
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Yes.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
—on Knight Road? At that time it was just being converted from the food facility for the Texas Medical Center.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
That’s right.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
And I remember, I had a cubicle right next to a giant washing station, where they must have washed dishes, or something. And when I think about now how when faculty come in and they want offices, administrative support, and it’s quite amazing. I just took it and I was happy with it. And I didn’t care.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah. Let me ask you another question. I mean, how quickly did you kind of understand what Charles LeMaistre’s vision was? What did Guy Newell feel was really his mission as being the person who was going to implement part of this?
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Well, I was really far removed. I was multiple layers away from Charles LeMaistre—
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Oh, sure.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
—for many years. So I had no idea what his vision was. And Guy really wanted to build a very strong program. And he did bring in Peter Mansell. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him?
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
No. Who was Peter Mansell?
Margaret Spitz, MD:
He was, I think, an immunologist. What happened was, at that time, the AIDS epidemic started. And they both became very involved in the AIDS epidemic. And it was a very difficult time. They had many patients here, and I’m not sure that everybody in the institution felt totally positive about building a big AIDS program. Of course, I was at such a junior level, I wasn’t privy to all the discussions. And that—
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
It was highly controversial everywhere.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Yes. Yes, it was controversial. And unfortunately, they had a large case control study, but never made the mark, so to speak. That was left to other programs like in California, San Francisco and so on. So it wasn’t as successful as it might have been. And I started off, we had no research support at all. And there was a patient with salivary gland cancer. And he reported that another coworker also had salivary gland cancer, which is relatively rare. And he wondered if it was a potential occupational exposure. So I decided to conduct a case control study doing chart reviews. And I was fortunate to get two wonderful women who were research volunteers.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Oh. I didn’t even know they had research volunteers.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Yes. They still do.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Interesting.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
And these women helped me abstract over 300 charts of patients with salivary gland cancer, and an equal number of controls without salivary gland cancer. And we did this very interesting study. Maybe it wouldn’t have gone anywhere, but I was fortunate that at that time, a new head of the Division of Pathology was hired, Dr. John Batsakis. And his focus of interest was salivary gland cancer. So I met with him several times. He was very excited about the data. He helped me. And the first three papers, we sent to journals. And they were all accepted. And I never realized that this was actually not the norm. I thought, you know, it sounds simple. And in fact, he also arranged for me to give a presentation—this was the first scientific presentation I had ever given, but sad to say it wasn’t to a community of epidemiologists, but to an International Association of Pathologists in Boston. And I had a hard time answering the questions, because they were all related to pathology, and of course I’m not a pathologist, although I wanted to be one. (laughter) So that was the first. And that got me going. So that was the first successful study I did. And then we did a study looking at parental occupations and a childhood cancer called neuroblastoma. And we showed that fathers who were exposed to electromagnetic radiation had a higher risk of their children developing neuroblastoma. And this was looking—it was a birth certificate study looking at the occupation of the fathers, as recorded on the birth certificates. And this caused a lot of public health interest, and a lot of blowback from electrical industries, and so on. And it was very controversial. And I found myself being requested to do a lot of legal cases. And people used to call me up and say they want to buy a house, but it’s near some electrical power plants. Should they buy the house? It was very difficult for me to answer those questions, because the science hadn’t been validated. So I ended up saying, well, it’s not a very attractive view, and maybe you should consider the resale value of the house. I’m giving them financial advice but not scientific advice.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah, yeah, very interesting. Well, and sort of unexpected role for you to serve.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Yes, of course. And I only once gave expert testimony to a lawyer, and I’ve never done it again. It’s not something I ever wanted to participate in.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Now, during these years, how did you feel you were evolving as a professional, you know, a member of the faculty here—
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Well, it took me a long time to get integrated, because of course, eventually I moved full-time and into the tenure track, and from assistant to associate professor. And I became more integrated. But only when I—the National Cancer Institute put out an RFA, which is a Request For Applications, for studying cancer in minority populations. And I decided to look at lung cancer in African Americans and Mexican Americans. And the reason was, African Americans had higher incidence rates and poorer outcomes. And Mexican Americans had lower incidence rates, and also poorer outcome. So I thought that would be a good contrast. So I wrote a grant. And this was the first grant I’d ever written. No one told me how important it was to even write grants. So I wrote this grant, and I actually met Jack Roth, Dr. Jack Roth, who was chairman of Thoracic Surgery at the time. He’s stepped on since.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
What year was this now?
Margaret Spitz, MD:
Maybe it was—I think it was maybe ’91, 1991. And I met him when we were both in line to have some vaccination at Employee Health, and I told him about my grant. And he was interested. And he proposed a molecular add-on which I thought was fascinating.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
What was that?
Margaret Spitz, MD:
To look at P53 germline mutations. And in those days, epidemiology was still fairly classical. It only came later that they added molecular components to the study. So it was quite new. I wrote this grant. And actually, I’d had a grant before, a small grant [ ]. And it came quite easily. And it was a small grant. [I did not realize how difficult it was to get funding.] Anyway, so I wrote this R01, which you’ve heard of R01s. And I was getting on a plane to go somewhere, and the program officer called me up and congratulated me, told me my grant was funded. And there were several other grants from this institution going out, and I always assumed they’d have a much better chance than me. And I said, “Really?” And I was so amazed. And the whole way on the plane, I kept thinking, how could I have got this grant? So to my embarrassment, when I got off the plane, I called the program officer back, and I said, “Are you sure you didn’t make a mistake?” I sort of remember, it was Dr. Joe Patel. And he thought I was crazy. And he said, “No, I didn’t make a mistake. It is your grant.” So that was the beginning of real success for me.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah.
Margaret Spitz, MD:
And that program really helped my career, and that of many others as well, because many others built their careers on lung cancer after that, which is exactly what I had wanted and hoped for.
Recommended Citation
Spitz, Margaret R. MD and Rosolowksi, Tacey A. PhD, "Chapter 03: A Job in a New Department and Research Successes" (2016). Interview Chapters. 1587.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/1587
Conditions Governing Access
Open
