Chapter 06: Hospital Departments – Department of Medicine and Department of Therapeutics and Changes to MD Anderson’s Organizational Structure
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Description
Dr. Bodey describes an institution in flux. He begins the chapter by discussing multiple search committees for a new head for the Department of Medicine which culminated in merging the departments of Therapeutics and Medicine with Dr. Ira Krakoff as the head. Following this were several departments and divisions being created and merged during this time.
Identifier
BodeyG_01_20030303_C06
Publication Date
3-3-2003
City
Houston, Texas
Interview Session
Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD , Oral History Interview, March 03, 2003
Topics Covered
Institutional Processes; Working Environment; Building/Transforming the Institution; Growth and/or Change; Controversy; Critical Perspectives on MD Anderson; Understanding the Institution; On the Nature of Institutions
Transcript
Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:
You were talking about Clifford Howe. Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD Yeah. Dr. Clark gave him some other responsibilities, so Dr. [Charles] Shullenberger was the acting head of the department. But he didn’t want the job on the permanent basis. So they formed three different search committees to find a new head of the Department of Medicine. By the time they got to the third search committee, the decision was that the Department of Therapeutics and Medicine should be combined. The recommendation of the committee basically was that Dr. Freireich would be made the head of the whole operation. But there was a feeling between the two departments that was not always good because the Department of Medicine was there, and the Department of Therapeutics appeared on the scene, so there was obviously certain friction between the two departments. This was sort of brought in there and imposed upon them, rather than developing out of the original department. So not everybody was happy with that particular prospect. I was on the last two committees, with myself as one of the members. So it was sort of left in limbo, and then Dr. LeMaistre decided that, well, he was going to put everything together. But he was going to start all over and have a search committee, and so I guess that was the fourth search committee.
Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:
Were you on the fourth search committee? You were on the second and the third.
Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD :
No. I was on the second and the third, which were search committees for the old Department of Medicine, but then Dr. LeMaistre decided he was going to put everything together. So he created now the fourth search committee for the head of what became the Department of Medicine.
Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:
Is this common in academic medicine to have each committee come up with a recommendation? Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD Well, I don't know because I’ve never been in any other institution except here. It hasn’t been a problem generally, but this was—
Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:
It’s a complicated thing. Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD The focuses of the departments were different, but there was a certain amount of overlap, like I did infectious diseases, while they had somebody in medicine who dabbled a little bit in infectious diseases. There were people in the Department of Medicine who would do primarily chemo cancer therapy, and of course Developmental Therapeutics was doing cancer chemotherapy so it was not surprising. But I mean, it wasn’t that big of a problem. When you start talking about combining the departments, then that didn’t sit too well with some people who had been here a long time in the department of medicine. But anyway, the doctor, LeMaistre, finally decided this needed to be resolved because there was a certain amount of overlap and so on. So they formed the fourth search committee, and they ultimately chose Dr.[Irwin] Krakoff as the head, and so then there was some reshuffling of people. Since I was at that point doing only infectious diseases, I was moved in what was the new Department of Medicine. Most of the people who were my colleagues then in that department had come from the old Department of Medicine. That took place whenever Dr. Krakoff came in, in the early 1980s.
Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:
I was thinking ’81, but I’d have to check. Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD I think it was a little later than ’81. I’m sure it was later than that because I gave up chemotherapy in 1983, and he came after that. He probably came around 1983, ’84. I gave everything up in 1983, so he probably came either late ’83 or 1984.
Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:
Let’s see. That’s when Dr. Freireich was made head of Leukemia. Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD Oh, he was made head of Hematology.
Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:
Hematology. That’s right. What kind of reception did Dr. Krakoff receive? Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD I don't know about that kind of thing.
Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:
Is that a loaded question? I thought I phrased that really well. Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD Well, quite honestly, he wasn’t well received by those of us in the Department of Developmental Therapeutics, and—
Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:
What about the people in medicine? Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD Medicine, I can’t speak for them because I never really discussed that much with any of those people. I got along with most of them very well and never really had a problem with them, with relating with them. But, I don't think they were concerned about it as those of us who were in Developmental Therapeutics. Dr. Krakoff himself was involved in cancer chemotherapy, which was more affected by us than by them. And he did some things initially that were not particularly helpful to unifying everything.
Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:
What things were those? Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD Well, I don't know if it’s wise to go into all that. He made a report, had the staff meet, gave a report at the end of his first year there, and compared what he had done with what had been done before.
Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:
I imagine that would not have gone over well. Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD Not too well received by those of us who were involved.
Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:
I don't think I have a copy of it. Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD But at any rate, I don't think that’s terribly important. Eventually he and I had a good relationship, and he asked me to serve as head of the Department of Medical Specialty, which I ultimately accepted. I sort of hesitated. In fact, he came to me three different times because I sort of decided I didn’t really want to get too much into administrative activities again, but then I finally decided I would take it, and we had a good working relationship.
Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:
What exactly was in medical specialties as compared with the rest of medicine? Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD Well, that was primarily most of the people who were not doing cancer chemotherapy. It was the cardiologists, the pulmonologists, the dermatologists. We didn’t have anybody full time in dermatology here. Infectious diseases, the general internal medicine, employee health, I don't know. I’d have to look. In endocrinology and renal, we didn’t have anybody here. We had that with the medical school. I think that includes pretty much everything. And dermatology was the joint operation of the medical school.
Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:
Chemotherapy was simply done under the medicine umbrella? Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD That was under the department—everybody was under division of medicine. Krakoff was the head of that, and so Medical Specialty was a department, along with the Department of, say, Medical Breast Oncology, Department of Thoracic Oncology, Department of Hematology, and so on.
Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:
Oh, okay. Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD And so—
Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:
It’s a little confusing. Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD It is confusing because now they’ve moved the Department of Medical Specialty up to a division so that all of the sections are now departments themselves. At that time, when I was the head of Infectious Disease, it was a section of the department. Now it’s a department of the division and so on. It’s always been complicated here.
Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:
Someday I’ll get a giant chart and somehow be able to follow that. Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD That’s why Dr. (???) Daigle wants me to sort of try to spend a little time on this. It gets written down somewhere because it is rather convoluted.
Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:
We need to get it down while you all remember it. Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD Well—
Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:
While it’s still relatively fresh because the longer we wait, the more confused it gets. Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD A lot of people have died, so there aren’t even too many of us left that were around. I was hardly around at the beginning. There’s hardly anybody that goes back to the very beginning.
Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:
Well, I did interview our first pharmacist the other day, Mr. McKinley, James McKinley. Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD Yeah. You talked to him?
Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:
Yeah. I talked to him on Thursday. Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD I could give him a phone call. I have his number. But when I came here, the pharmacist was Mr. McKinley.
Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:
I know. It’s really amazing. Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD It is amazing.
Recommended Citation
Bodey, Gerald P. MD and Brunet, Lesley W., "Chapter 06: Hospital Departments – Department of Medicine and Department of Therapeutics and Changes to MD Anderson’s Organizational Structure" (2003). Interview Chapters. 981.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/981
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