Chapter 03: An Opportunity to Leave Private Practice for MD Anderson
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Description
Dr. Foxhall first describes the ways in which he and Dr. Joseph Painter worked together in the late 80s. He then explains why he decided to leave private practice at that time: Dr. Foxhall first took a faculty position with UT Health Science in Family Medicine in 1991. In 1993 Dr. Foxhall was hired to help Dr. Painter with outreach and educating primary care physicians.
Identifier
FoxhallLE_01_20140205_C03
Publication Date
2-5-2014
City
Houston, Texas
Interview Session
Lewis Foxhall, MD, Oral History Interview, February 05, 2014
Topics Covered
The Interview Subject's Story - Joining MD Anderson/Coming to Texas; Joining MD Anderson; Professional Path; Evolution of Career
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 Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Right. So are we at the point where you can tell me the story about Dr. Painter speaking to you about coming on to MD Anderson? How did that happen?
Lewis Foxhall, MD:
Well, you know, like I say, we’d gotten to know each other through some of these educational programs that he’d put together, and we clearly had a common interest in working on the issues of addressing cancer prevention in a primary care setting. He at that time was engaged in a lot of activities in organized medicine and was president of the AMA at that point in time, so he was very busy with a lot of those things, so I think he began looking for some help, you know, some like-minded persons to bring on board to try to help continue to promote his ideas in that area. So—
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Can I interrupt you just for—
Lewis Foxhall, MD:
Sure.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Can I close the door? Because I think we may have some pickup from the conversation out in the hall. Now, when you say “organized medicine,” I’ve never heard that before. Do you mean medical organizations? What does that term refer to?
Lewis Foxhall, MD:
It refers to the medical organizations like the American Medical Association, the Texas Medical Association, and then the specialty-based organizations like the Academy, so those kind—
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Okay. I’d never heard the term before. (laughs)
Lewis Foxhall, MD:
Sorry. As opposed to [unclear]. (Rosolowski laughs.) It’s an odd term, but anyway, that’s the—
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
No. Hey, learn something.
Lewis Foxhall, MD:
[unclear].
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah. So what year was this when he approached you about working with him in a more formal way?
Lewis Foxhall, MD:
That was in the—we began working together, I guess in the late eighties and early nineties, around through there.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Also, do you think that it was an advantage to you being a Texas native to do this work in the Texas context?
Lewis Foxhall, MD:
I mean, I think to the extent that I had a large network of colleagues out there that I’d developed over the years, I think was the main thing, so my association and involvement in the various organizations that I was working with, yeah.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
I was just wondering if there was anything about more kind of understanding the culture.
Lewis Foxhall, MD:
If I’d have been born in Oklahoma and moved over here, it probably wouldn’t have made a lot of difference.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
(laughs) Very well. I just thought the question needed to be asked. (laughs)
Lewis Foxhall, MD:
Being around the neighborhood for an extended period is probably the major thing, just, you know, being able to develop networks and colleagues across the state was important.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Sure. So tell me about being recruited or being offered a position here. What was that like? What was the role you were asked to serve when you first came? You said they had trouble finding a home for you. So tell me about that whole period.
Lewis Foxhall, MD:
I can’t remember exactly how it became obvious to me that the position was available, but anyway, through various conversations that occurred, and then started conversations with Dr. Painter about that, and I was able to convince him that I might actually be able to do the job. So he was kind enough to hire me on, and that worked out well.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Why did you decide it was time to leave private practice?
Lewis Foxhall, MD:
Well, I’d been involved, like I say, in the organized medicine bit of life for a while and began to kind of look at some bigger-picture opportunities. I felt like I was contributing, I enjoyed my practice, I loved my patients, but being able to contribute on a bigger stage and to a broader audience was appealing to me. So that was, I think, probably kind of what spurred me on. I’d been in private practice about twelve, fourteen years, I guess, at that point in time, so I was just beginning to think it might be interesting to try a little something different. So I initially took an academic position with the UT Health Science Center Medical School here in Houston in their family medicine department in teaching. So I’d always enjoyed teaching when I was a resident and I’d worked with students in my office over the years, and I decided that would be sort of a good place to start and an approach to life. So I’d been in that, I guess, about two years when Dr. Painter and I got to the stage that I decided to move over here to Anderson and focus just on the cancer prevention aspects.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
So it was in ’91 that you began teaching for—
Lewis Foxhall, MD:
Yeah, about there.
Recommended Citation
Foxhall, Lewis E. MD and Rosolowski, Tacey A. PhD, "Chapter 03: An Opportunity to Leave Private Practice for MD Anderson" (2014). Interview Chapters. 852.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/852
Conditions Governing Access
Open
