Chapter 07: Significant Accomplishments Under Each President
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Description
In this chapter, Ms. Hale identifies some of the primary achievements under each president. She notes that Dr. Clark was particularly concerned about the overall health of MD Anderson employees. She also tells anecdotes to illustrate his difficulty remembering names. She comments on the support Dr. LeMaistre was able to create for basic researchers via the PRS system. She talks about Dr. Mendelsohn requiring that faculty generate 30% of their salary via grants. She also tells anecdotes to demonstrate the Dr. Mendelsohn and his wife, Anne Mendelsohn, functioned as a team.
Identifier
HaleJ_02_20180531_C07
Publication Date
5-31-2018
City
Houston, Texas
Interview Session
Topics Covered
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center - Building the Institution; Overview; Portraits; MD Anderson Culture; Working Environment; Professional Practice; The Professional at Work; Building/Transforming the Institution; Growth and/or Change
Transcript
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Now you had made some notes of thoughts that you had wanted to share today, so why don’t you tell me what you have on your list.
JoAnne Hale:
Well, I just wrote them down, one, two, three, and I’ve mentioned a couple of them. I think I mentioned—is this me, for me?
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Absolutely, it’s for you.
JoAnne Hale:
Dr. Clark developed that worldwide directory of cancer centers, so that we would know what kind of research they were doing in France in particular, in cancer, and he was a big part of the National Cancer Institute’s War on Cancer and was instrumental and was on the first President’s Cancer Panel. He cared about the overall health—this is something I don’t think I brought up. He cared about the overall health of the employees. If he saw someone overweight, he’d tell them, he’d give them this book. He did this for doctors too, and if you walked in with him, you walked the stairs, and things like that.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Didn’t he do boxing or something?
JoAnne Hale:
He did.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
He was really into physical culture.
JoAnne Hale:
It was wrestling, he did wrestling, when he was in college and stuff like that.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Did his attitude make a change in the institution or create an environment at all?
JoAnne Hale:
I don’t know. We were pretty well-tried to be protected from him, but this other girl and I we were, we just, we had a relationship with him outside of the office that they didn’t approve of or like, but he did, I mean he was comfortable with it. One of the things about him that I think was interesting, he had a hard time remembering names. He would come back off of a trip and he would say—he sat by this one lady and he said, I think your name is Sarah Fawcett, and it was Farrah Fawcett, was on the plane with him. Another time, he was on the plane with Johnny Cash and he couldn’t remember his name. Sometimes he’d come out and he’d have to look at our nametags, I mean he just, he didn’t, he just didn’t pick up on a lot of names. Now I don’t know how he was when he was out with, I’m sure the doctors and stuff like that, that he would remember, but famous people, he didn’t remember. He would often make remarks and then he’d make them come true. One in particular that I remember, and I may have mentioned it, is when we had the dedication of the Lutheran Hospital. He didn’t mention a particular family, and I think it was the Robertsons, and he said, well the reason I didn’t is because we’re having a special thing for them, and so he named a building, a wing after them. Those, I think were things from Dr. Clark, that I remembered. I think I told you that Dr. LeMaistre brought the whole financial support together, for the clinicians and researchers. Clark was a clinician pretty much, and researchers, they didn’t get the benefit of the PRS or anything like that. Dr. LeMaistre did not do any overseas travel and he didn’t give any scientific publications, I mean speeches, but his biggest thing was the self—he got MD Anderson the self-referral.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
The self-referral, yeah, yeah.
JoAnne Hale:
I thought that was good. Dr. Mendelsohn, one thing that I may have mentioned, he encouraged and demanded all researchers have 30 percent of their salary on grants. He also reviewed manuscripts. To him, the research and clinic was most important, I think I told you that. He wasn’t all that interested in employee events. He and Mrs. [Anne] Mendelsohn, when they would go to an event… And I remember this, I think it was when he first became president, they went to an event in Washington, D.C., and they worked the crowd. She wasn’t with him as he spoke to people. She would meet certain—and they would kind of work it out before they got there. And this was given to me, told to me by one of the Development Office people. They said on the way home, they discussed the different people that they talked to and what their interests were, and things like that. I think they pretty much did that throughout, when they had these fundraising events, is they kind of worked separately, the crowd. And of course she had a degree in biology I think, so.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Oh, I didn’t know that.
JoAnne Hale:
Yeah. He ran all of his papers, a lot of things, he would talk it over with her.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
I mean, I got the sense that they were really a team, they kind of crafted that when they were in San Diego too, and in New York. Interesting.
JoAnne Hale:
And it was so interesting that he never traveled, particularly overseas, but most of his travel, she went with him, because that was always—you know, always somebody in power is always going to have people looking for them and looking to be close to them and stuff like that. That’s one thing they did do.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
What did you mean by looking to be close to him?
JoAnne Hale:
Women.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Women, yeah okay, yeah, yeah. Interesting. Well, so that was sort of a double bonus, because you have that protection, but then also, she obviously was a real important partner for him.
JoAnne Hale:
Yeah, that’s right, that’s right.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Very interesting.
JoAnne Hale:
It was very rewarding, to see that. That’s, you know, that’s just a lot of little things that I may not have covered.
Recommended Citation
Hale, JoAnne H. and Rosolowski, Tacey A. PhD, "Chapter 07: Significant Accomplishments Under Each President" (2018). Interview Chapters. 974.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/974
Conditions Governing Access
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