Chapter 13: Perspectives on Changes at MD Anderson Culture and Contributions to the Institution
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Ms. Houston begins this segment by observing that since the seventies, MD Anderson has grown so much that it is impossible to know everyone, and interactions have become more impersonal. Technology has contributed this, as people email and text one another instead of communicating by phone or fact-to-face. Reflecting on whether the Institution can become too large, Ms. Houston observes that the Regional Care Centers return in a sense to the more personal feel of the old, smaller MD Anderson. In the case of Information Systems, she says, there is no quality compromise as the institution expands into remote units. In the case of overseas units (Global Oncology), she notes there is always a question about whether patient care is delivered in the same way as in Houston.
Next Ms. Houston says that her greatest concern is to find her replacement. She hopes that people in Information Systems will continue to foster a culture in which “everybody has worth” and can feel successful in what they do. MD Anderson has given her tremendous opportunities for success and to make friends. Once she retires, she intends to indulge her love of travel (especially taking cruises), her dogs who are like her children, and her various hobbies such as needlework.
Identifier
HoustonDA_02_20120727
Publication Date
7-27-2012
City
Houston, Texas
Interview Session
Topics Covered
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center - Institutional Change; Growth and/or Change; MD Anderson Culture; Career and Accomplishments; Personal Background; The Administrator
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:
What kind of change—you talked yesterday a bit about how the institution today is very different from what it was. How do you see that—I think you were talking really from the perspective of the nursing part of your career then? How do you see that from the perspective of your IT career—that change in the institution?
Deborah Houston:
Well, I think the institution is so large now. It’s just—it’s just huge. You didn’t know—you can never know everybody. You could know, when I was in nursing, you knew almost everybody that worked, at least, the shift that you worked because you saw them. You knew who to call or who you could call for what and where your resources were. Today, there are lots of key people you know, but you just don’t know people. I guess the personal interaction with people isn’t like it used to be. I think IT has helped that because—helped make that the reality. People don’t talk to people anymore. They email each other. They instant message each other. We laugh about there’s the three email rule. If you’re going back and forth and you can’t the question answered, stop, pick up the phone, or get up and go talk to the person. People aren’t talking to the person in their next cubicle or office. They’re emailing. I think—it’s like what did we do before that. You called them on the phone or you went and met with them or whatever. I think that is something that IT—technology—has perpetuated. We have lost some of that interpersonal. Yes, people can yell at each other over the email. That’s, I think, something that we have perpetuated. Then, I just think the facility, the campus—the spreading out of the facility. I mean, look how far you have to walk to go from---think of our patients. If you happen to park in garage ten because you started out the morning getting a lab test in the Diagnostic Center and some x-ray on that side of that building, and we’ve scheduled you to have something else over in the Ambulatory Clinic building. Yes, we have, carts, but that’s a lot of walking and movement of people and staff. You can spend a day walking between A, C, B in the Faculty Center and the main campus, much less the main hospital. The one MC, administrative building, here at the bank building. There are days that I have meetings in all three buildings. It’s like I don’t know where I left my car at the end of the day. Yes, we have shuttles, but you waste a lot of time.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Do you think there’s a point where MD Anderson can become too big? This kind of goes also to the remote care centers and sister institutions. Do you think it can become too big?
Deborah Houston:
I don’t know. That’s probably heretical to say that it could become too big, because that’s the goal—we want to take care of patients with cancer in the whole world. So, no, I don’t think it can get too big. I think the Regional Care Center concept is almost going back to the MD Anderson of old. What we don’t have there is the inpatient component of that, but the clinics were you have staff—a smaller group of staff that are working together much more closely.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
What do you think are the challenges of maintaining quality—the MD Anderson brand, if you will, in regional care centers?
Deborah Houston:
Well, I don’t think it’s the regional care centers that are the issue with that because they’re using the same applications, the same—they use ClinicStation just like the clinic here does. It’s the exact same systems, the same pharmacy, the same pharmacy system. I think—they go through the same committee process to get orders approved and things like that. I don’t think our regional care centers, as we know them here in Houston, is the issue. I think where the struggle with quality and that’s what the physicians network group and the global oncology people who work with our sister institutions in Phoenix or in Istanbul or Albuquerque—wherever they’re being planned for—and our physicians who are saying they are MD Anderson affiliates or whatever the term is they use out in the community. Are they practicing the way we do? That’s something that they measure. I think that would be a struggle. My assumption is the quality is good because I don’t hear—I wouldn’t hear, but you know. I think that’s hard—how do they manage that?
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
In addition to the goals that you have listed that you would like to achieve before you leave—
Deborah Houston:
And win the lottery so I can cruise around the world and all those kind of things, yeah—marry a millionaire—billionaire.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah, the essentials for retirement. Is there anything else that you really want to do before you leave?
Deborah Houston:
Find somebody to replace me. We need to make a decision on that in the next couple of years. If it is to replace this position, we need to find the right person and, then, get that person here who can suck my brain and follow me around for six months or whatever to learn.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Right, and get into your networks.
Deborah Houston:
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that’s really—we need to figure out a plan for that.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
With all the people that you’ve worked with and kind of given them a taste of your facilitation skills and leadership skills, what do you hope the people you leave behind will carry on of what you’ve left?
Deborah Houston:
I hope they foster the—everybody has worth, everybody has something to contribute, everybody needs to be listened to, and everybody should be treated with respect, regardless if you’re the nighttime support analyst or you’re the director of the department. Everybody needs to listen to what you have to say and go forward.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Why is that so important to you?
Deborah Houston:
Because everybody needs to feel valued. If you don’t feel valued, you don’t like what you do, and you don’t enjoy your job. Everybody needs to enjoy what they do. We spend too much time at work not to like what you do. If you’re miserable with what you do, you don’t do a good job. I have tried to impart that on my employees and the managers that I work with is if you aren’t happy or if your staff aren’t happy, let’s figure out how to make them happy. If they’re not happy, if they hate what they do, let’s help them find something to do that they like to do to be successful. Everybody should feel successful in their work, whether it’s taking care of patients, whether it’s programming a computer, whether it’s sitting with a physician listening to him complain about the stuff you just built—whatever it is—you need to feel satisfaction and feel like you contribute something.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
I had a few additional questions I wanted to ask you that were kind of a little bit more about private life, but before I go on to that, is there anything more that you wanted to say about your work life at MD Anderson?
Deborah Houston:
No. It’s been a good career. It’s been a very good career.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah, yeah. What do you feel—maybe it’s a funny question—what do you feel MD Anderson has given you? You’ve given a lot of your life to MD Anderson. What is it—?
Deborah Houston:
Gray hair? My hair dresser knows how much gray hair I have. I think it has given me a lot of success. I have had a lot of great opportunities from working at MD Anderson, so I appreciate that. A lot of friends. A lot of memories. It’s been a good place to work.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
What do you do in your private life when you need to decompress?
Deborah Houston:
Oh, that’s funny. I love to travel. I have dogs that are my children. I read. I do needlework. I try to do things instead of just sitting watching television. I spend a lot of time with family. It’s good.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Among the friends that you have, are your friends pretty much from MD Anderson?
Deborah Houston:
A lot of them are. A lot of them are. Friends that I had years ago that have moved that we’ve kept up with. My best friend is a nurse. I have lots of best friends, but she worked here for twenty years and then moved back home to take care of her family—her parents. We still travel together and do things. Yeah, and I have friends, lifelong friends, from my husband that—his best friend and his family—I still see regularly. People from his work that I am very close with. Yeah, lots of friends, neighbors.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Is there a particular place that is really important to you?
Deborah Houston:
Like to travel to?
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah, you know, some place that you feel really a kinship with?
Deborah Houston:
A cruise ship—sitting on the deck of any cruise ship watching the world go by. That’s why I want to win the lottery. People laugh at me and say, “Oh, you would never do that.” It’s like, “If I won the lottery and won millions and millions of dollars, I would quit tomorrow, and I would go get on a world cruise on some cruise ship and just sit there and watch the world go by for 160 days or whatever it is.” I would love that.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Watching the world go by means just—
Deborah Houston:
Just doing nothing. Reading. Sleeping. Just enjoying life.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
That’s a good goal.
Deborah Houston:
That’s my goal.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
That’s a good goal.
Deborah Houston:
I don’t think it’ll ever happen, so I go on lots of cruises. I go on at least one—that’s the joke—standard joke around here. When I go on vacation, “Where are you cruising to now?” I love to cruise. My husband loved to cruise, so we enjoy that.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
That’s great. So that’s something you really enjoyed doing together? That’s wonderful.
Deborah Houston:
Yeah. So, my next cruise is in October. We’re going to the Panama Canal for two weeks with my niece and my best friend. So, it’ll be good. We’ll have a good time.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Is there anything else that you would like to add at this point?
Deborah Houston:
No. Thank you for the opportunity.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Well, it was really a pleasure talking to you. It was really interesting. It’s about quarter of four and I’m turning off the recorder.
Deborah Houston:
Very good.
Recommended Citation
Houston, Deborah A. and Rosolowski, Tacey A. PhD, "Chapter 13: Perspectives on Changes at MD Anderson Culture and Contributions to the Institution" (2012). Interview Chapters. 896.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/896
Conditions Governing Access
Open
