Chapter 03: Finding a Way to Have a Research Career at MD Anderson
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Description
In this chapter, Dr. Elting explains why she rethought her career path so she could come to MD Anderson and conduct research. She was interested in her work in the Coding Department, where she was recognized, and rewarded. She decided to switch her studies to medicine and thought of applying to medical school, however, ultimately attended Houston Baptist University for a degree in Nursing (BS conferred in 1974). In 1976 she began working at MD Anderson working for Dr. Gerald Bodey [Oral History Interview]. She explains the pharmacological studies she worked on and notes the status of research nurses.
Dr. Elting describes the unstructured environment in Developmental Therapeutics, where it was possible to be innovative. Dr. Elting tells a story of taking such an opportunity to aggregate data on one study when Dr. Bodey was away. She observes that some people thought it was presumptuous to take over a task usually performed by a physician, a fact that led to a divide between floor nurses and research nurses, but that didn’t stop many people from simply taking over a task. Dr. Elting notes that in an unstructured environment, mentoring is unstructured as well.
Identifier
EltingL_01_20150219_C03
Publication Date
2-19-2015
City
Houston, Texas
Interview Session
Linda S. Elting, DrPh, Oral History Interview, February 19, 2015
Topics Covered
The Interview Subject's Story - Professional Path; Personal Background; Professional Path; Inspirations to Practice Science/Medicine; Experiences Related to Gender, Race, Ethnicity; Influences from People and Life Experiences; Controversy; MD Anderson Culture; MD Anderson History; Mentoring
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
Linda S. Elting, DrPh:
So I thought through my options at that point, and was very interested in the kinds of things that we were doing in the Coding Department, and in particular, there were a few physicians who would come to the department to do research. And they would arrive with forms they would fill out, and my job was just to go to Medical Records and get the charts for them; I was just the chart person. And then my other job was to sit next to them and take the chart away when they were finished, it was a highly responsible job. (laughter) But I recognized that they were coming with these forms, and they had all this stuff to fill out, and there was a fair amount of that stuff I could fill out before they arrived. So I started doing that. And they recognized the value of that. So they started teaching me more and more about the stuff they were studying, and about things that I could fill out for them, and pretty soon I was filling out a lot of the form for them, and doing their research. So I came to the conclusion that I wanted to switch from art history to something to do with medicine and research. So I looked at applying to medical school. Looked atI hadn't finished college yet, but looked at potentially applying for medical school, or doing something else, and recognized I really didn't have the money to ever go to medical school. But you could get very good scholarships to get a degree in nursing. And there was a good baccalaureate program here in Houston, at Houston Baptist [University]. So when I had saved up enough money for that and gotten some scholarship money, I quit my job here and then went to school more or less full time, until I got my nursing degree. So when I graduated, I just wanted to go to work at MD Anderson doing research; that's what I wanted to do.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Okay. Interesting.
Linda S. Elting, DrPh:
So I couldn't get that job immediately
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Mm-hmm?
Linda S. Elting, DrPh:
And I took a job temporarily as a health educator at Harris County Center for the Retarded, until I could get a job as a research nurse at MD Anderson.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Now, the yearlet's see, you graduated in 1974
Linda S. Elting, DrPh:
Mm-hmm.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
with your nursing degree.
Linda S. Elting, DrPh:
Mm-hmm.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Now, that was very early years of research nurses.
Linda S. Elting, DrPh:
Yes.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
So
Linda S. Elting, DrPh:
In fact, there was no such title.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah. So how did you understand what you were going to be doing, or tracking into, at that point?
Linda S. Elting, DrPh:
Oh, I didn't. I was very open-minded, I just wanted to do research. And so, I came to MD Anderson and applied for a job in research. And they said, "Well, we don't have anything for you right now,"but eventually they called and said they had a job as a Research Technician IIIanother one of those things(laughs) for Dr. [Gerald] Bodey in infectious diseases. And so, and the job then was basically to do procedures and to assist in collecting data on forms for clinical trials of new antibiotics, and then to do the procedures in the protected environments, the sterile environments, and help to collect the data for that. And at that point, that's what I wanted to do, and I aspired to be a Research Technician IV. (laughs) And I became a Research Technician IV after a while. Butand I enjoyed that. I did a lot of pharmacology studies of new antibiotics. We put in some of the first long lines, central lines, that nurses put in. But we didn't have the title "Nurse,"we were called "Technicians." We did bone marrow aspirations and biopsies, some superficial skin biopsies and then a lot of data collection. So
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Were therealong the way, did you have people that you felt were particularlyworked as mentors for you? I mean, obviously, Dr. Freireich was a real inspiration at that one particular moment.
Linda S. Elting, DrPh:
Mm-hmm.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Were there people that were starting to help you think about how your career was unfolding?
Linda S. Elting, DrPh:
I learned a lot of medicine from the fellows who were assigned to the studies that I worked with. And we would work together on the same charts. And soand the fellows I worked with, the junior fellows I worked with were Mike [Michael] Keating and Gabe [Gabriel] Hortobagyi, and people like that who are big names in the institution these days. But they were doing their fellowships then. And I learned a lot from them. I wouldn't say I had mentors; you know, mentors are kind of new.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Mm-hmm.
Linda S. Elting, DrPh:
What I would say is that because it was a really sort of non-structured environment, there were lots of times when you could just sort of step in and seize an opportunity, because it was something new, and there really wasn't any plan for how it ought to come off.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Mm-hmm.
Linda S. Elting, DrPh:
So I got interested in aggregating data, and actually putting it all together one time when Dr. Bodey was gone off to Russia, and the people, a sponsor of a company was coming to look at preliminary data from a study, and there was no one to put it together. And I looked at his desk, and there was a big, enormous green sheet of paper with rows and columns, and I could see kind of what he did, so I just did some more of it, added to it. And I got a real interest in looking at things not at the individual patient level, but in aggregating the information. And so, when he came back, there it all was, and I said, "Well, you weren't here, and they were scheduled to be here. So here it is, if we need to correct it then we'll do that, and I'll send it off." And after that, he started handing it to me to do. And so because it was sort of a new area with lots of new people doing it, there weren't a lot of rules and regulations about what kind of person ought to do which job, so when something was interesting or needed to get done, there were opportunities to step in and do it.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
I mean, I don't know if you felt this way at the time, or even maybe in retrospect, but as I'm hearing you tell the story, I'm thinking, wow, that was also a great opportunity for a woman, too
Linda S. Elting, DrPh:
Yes.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
to have that openness.
Linda S. Elting, DrPh:
Mm-hmm.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Do you agree with that, looking back?
Linda S. Elting, DrPh:
Yeah, at that point there was so much work to be done, and so few people to do it that when people stepped up and did stuff, that was always good. I don't ever recall at that point hearing, "Well, nurses don't do that,"or, "Women don't do that,"it was, "Okay, cool, you can do that? That means I can do this over here." So I think that was a good environment.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Mm-hmm.
Linda S. Elting, DrPh:
It's environments like that don't have structured mentoring, it's easy to get lost in a system like that. There are all kinds of bad things about it, too. But for someone who's willing to do some work and take some risks, there were a lot of opportunities to step in and do stuff.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Now, what about that risk-taking opportunity? I mean, was it taking risks for you?
Linda S. Elting, DrPh:
Oh, yeah.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Or was it just doing whatit was?
Linda S. Elting, DrPh:
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it was considered by some to be presumptuous for someone who is not a physician to step in and take over doing something that had been done in the past by physicians. And in fact, there was a feeling among the nurses in the institution that the sort of thing that we did as research nurses was not appropriate work for nurses. They didn't do bone marrow aspirations and biopsies, or those kinds of procedures. Those were done by fellows, by physicians. And so at that point, there was a reala divide, you know, between the nurses on the floors and the nurses who did research kind of work. And it took a number of years before we were allowed to call ourselves nurses.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Interesting. Hmm. Where do you think you got the ability to step up and take those risks, you know?
Linda S. Elting, DrPh:
I guess from the time I was little, my parents always told me I could do anything in the world; all I had to do was work hard, and I believed them. I think their statement wasit was a little bit of an overstatement; (laughs) there are a fair number of things I can't do at all. But I was still a believer back then. So it didn't seem odd at all that someone with no math background should an analysis of a study. (laughter)
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
And do it successfully.
Linda S. Elting, DrPh:
Yes. And have no problem doing it. So
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah, very interesting. Well, I'm sure just taking on a challenge like that, doing it successfully, gives you the confidence to say, "Well, sure, I'm going to stretch my wings even more."
Linda S. Elting, DrPh:
Yeah, yeah. It was an exciting time. People did a lot of cool stuff, and a lot of it seemed really successful. So there weren't a lot of negative things going on
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Mm-hmm.
Linda S. Elting, DrPh:
in our little world in chemotherapy, you know, there was so much progress, big steps being made, that it was easy to jump on that bandwagon.
Recommended Citation
Elting, Linda E. DPh and Rosolowski, Tacey A. PhD, "Chapter 03: Finding a Way to Have a Research Career at MD Anderson" (2015). Interview Chapters. 707.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/707
Conditions Governing Access
Open
