Chapter 24: Legacy Left at MD Anderson; A Love of French Cooking; Life and Work Fed by Spirituality
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Description
When asked about the legacy he will leave at MD Anderson, Dr. Podoloff immediately lists the individuals in leadership positions whom he trained or recruited. He sketches what he wishes to accomplish prior to retirement and expresses his views of a working with MD Anderson.
Next, Dr. Podoloff talks about favorite activities: he loves to cook French food, for example.
Finally, he talks about his relationship with Judaism and the importance of spirituality in his life and his work.
Identifier
PodoloffD_03_20150604_C24
Publication Date
6-4-2015
City
Houston, Texas
Interview Session
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD, Oral History Interview, June 04, 2015
Topics Covered
The Interview Subject's Story - View on Career and Accomplishments; Character, Values, Beliefs, Talents; Faith; Career and Accomplishments; Post Retirement Activities; Professional Values, Ethics, Purpose
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
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
I also wanted to ask you as you look back on what you’ve done at the institution what is it that you’re most contented to have set in place.
Donald A. Podoloff, MD:
OK, that’s easy. I’m extremely proud of a legacy that I’m going to leave when I quit this job.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
And what is that legacy?
Donald A. Podoloff, MD:
Marshall Hicks, the head of Diagnostic Imaging. Wei Yang, the chair of Diagnostic Radiology. Homer Macapinlac, the chair of Nuclear Medicine. And John Hazle, the chair of Diagnostic Imaging. It’s a great legacy to leave.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
What do you intend on doing in your time remaining?
Donald A. Podoloff, MD:
Staying alive.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
(laughter) Do you have retirement plans? Do you have a date? You may not want to share it, but do you have a date?
Donald A. Podoloff, MD:
I do, but I haven’t shared it. I want to finish this research project that I’m working on. And I want to train and certify my replacement as the medical director.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Has that person been chosen?
Donald A. Podoloff, MD:
Not to my knowledge.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
OK.
Donald A. Podoloff, MD:
Yeah, it’s been a wonderful place to work. Almost every morning I got up I would get up and say, “This is great, I’m glad I’m coming to work now.” I still feel that most mornings, but not all. That’s part of the reason I’m thinking about retiring. There was something else. I had another thought that I wanted to share with you. It’ll come back.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
How do you think people will remember you?
Donald A. Podoloff, MD:
Well, I can only go on the basis of my upward evaluations. Some of them are going to love me and some of them are going to hate me. I must have been a very polarizing figure, because I used to get in the same evaluation he’s the greatest thing since sliced bread, and other people said, “He’s a piece of shit, get rid of him.” It was not said quite that way, but that was the message.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
(laughter) Well, at least you know you’re making an impact, right?
Donald A. Podoloff, MD:
Yeah. Well, I once told Dr. Kripke, because she said she was disappointed in my upward evaluation. I said, “I am too.” I said, “But if it was a good evaluation it would mean I wasn’t doing my job.”
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah. Not rattling the cages. Yeah. Well, I also would like to ask you if there’s anything about the person behind the titles and the CV. Something about your hobbies or personal persona that you could share.
Donald A. Podoloff, MD:
Yeah. I like to cook.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Oh, really.
Donald A. Podoloff, MD:
And I’m pretty good at it.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Do you have a specialty?
Donald A. Podoloff, MD:
Just about anything. But French. I do a lot of Julia Child kind of stuff. But I modified it. I recently had a dinner party where it took me four hours to make a sauce.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
(laughter) Do you approach it like a laboratory problem?
Donald A. Podoloff, MD:
Yeah, of course, it’s chemistry.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
There we go.
Donald A. Podoloff, MD:
Cooking is chemistry, that’s why I like it. I used to run, till I injured myself, and that was good. Not injuring myself, but running. I don’t do that anymore. I hate to travel. My wife is very concerned about what we’re going to do when I retire. Because I’ll do anything to avoid traveling. I traveled a lot over the twenty-nine years that I’ve been here. It’s not any fun anymore for me. Let’s see. I read a lot. I’m an avid reader.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Have there been any particularly influential books for you? Oh.
Donald A. Podoloff, MD:
That one.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
There we have The Emperor of All Maladies. Yes.
Donald A. Podoloff, MD:
Another one was The History of the Jews. And the third one was The Gifts of the Jews. That’s where Sabbath came from. I read Torah. I don’t belong to any affiliated synagogue, but every Saturday—I have to tell you the story how it happened. Are you Jewish?
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Mm-mm.
Donald A. Podoloff, MD:
No. There’s the High Holy Days that come, the New Year and the Day of Atonement. And our rabbi Sam Karff—
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Oh, you know Sam Karff, yeah.
Donald A. Podoloff, MD:
Yeah, Sam was a very good friend of mine. Yeah. How do you know him?
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
I networked with him when I was coming to Houston. He’s a wonderful person.
Donald A. Podoloff, MD:
Yes, he is. It’s part of the reason I don’t belong to any synagogues now because nobody has ever lived up to him. But one of his sermons over the period of time was he asked the audience, “What do you do to demonstrate that you’re Jewish?” I said, “Nothing. Well, I come here.” And so I got to thinking about that. And I discussed it with my wife, who is not Jewish. She’s a lapsed Catholic, she likes to refer to herself. And we decided that I would go to synagogue every Saturday, that we would light candles Friday night for the Sabbath. And I said, “And I’m going to read the Torah.” So I did all three of those things for fifteen years. I started, and new rabbis came. And the new rabbis were younger than I was. And some of them didn’t know as much as I did. So I stopped going to temple. (laughter)
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Oh yeah. (laughter) Do you feel that your spiritual belief has some impact on your—
Donald A. Podoloff, MD:
Yeah. Sure. Oh yeah.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
How so? And that will be my last question, I promise.
Donald A. Podoloff, MD:
It defines everything that I do.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Really.
Donald A. Podoloff, MD:
I have a very strong belief that we’re not the only thing in the universe, and that we did get created somehow. Probably not by an old man in seven days. But that there’s—and I don’t believe in heaven or hell or any of that garbage. But I do believe that there is something divine about all of us. So anyhow that’s how I got to start to read the Torah. And now I continue that, although I haven’t been to synagogue in a long time. I actually am networking now through the Internet with the Central Synagogue of New York City.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Oh, really.
Donald A. Podoloff, MD:
They do their services online.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Wow. That’s neat.
Donald A. Podoloff, MD:
And I’ve tried that a couple of—I’ve been doing it for a couple weeks. It’s interesting.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
I’m really glad you shared that.
Donald A. Podoloff, MD:
And it’s interesting to see how young the clergy is. I mean they could all be my children. I had this conversation with an older rabbi, and he was furious with me. He basically said, “What do you think we go to school for all those years?” Blah blah blah blah blah. And it’s like could they become a doctor without going to school, I said, “No, they can’t. It’s a bit of a different analogy though because there are certain skills that you have to have to be a physician. Certain knowledge base that you have to have. You can be a rabbi without those things. But you won’t be a very good one, you have to learn something.” But after a while the Torah is read over and over and over again. It’s the same book. It’s the same five books actually. And it starts and stops and begins again. In fact the way it’s constructed is that when you read the last chapter in the last book you immediately start the first chapter in the first book. And every Jew in the world does that every Saturday. So it’s a connection. It’s very interesting. And that’s why throughout the centuries people have tried to destroy the Torah, because of its strength.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Well, I’m really glad you talked about that. Thank you.
Donald A. Podoloff, MD:
It defines me. It’s part of the reason I’m a doctor, and it’s part of the reason I’m a good human being, I think.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Well, we’ve actually run a few minutes over. So I want to make sure that we don’t abuse your time. And I thank you very much for your time this morning and for sharing all this.
Donald A. Podoloff, MD:
Pleasure, thank you for—I forgot why I got involved with this. I think it had something to do with one of my colleagues asking me.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Someone asked you, I can’t remember who it was.
Donald A. Podoloff, MD:
It was one of the orthopedic radiologists. Haygood maybe.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Oh yes, Tamara Haygood, yes, yes. Well, thank you again for your time this morning.
Donald A. Podoloff, MD:
Sure.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
And I’m turning off the recorder at about .
Donald A. Podoloff, MD:
Ten forty-eight.
Tacey A. Rosolowski, PhD:
There we go. END OF AUDIO FILE
Recommended Citation
Podoloff, Donald A. PhD and Rosolowski, Tacey A. PhD, "Chapter 24: Legacy Left at MD Anderson; A Love of French Cooking; Life and Work Fed by Spirituality" (2015). Interview Chapters. 752.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/752
Conditions Governing Access
Open
