Chapter 08: Professional Activities and Working with NASA and NCI

Chapter 08: Professional Activities and Working with NASA and NCI

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Description

Dr. Bodey discusses his accomplishments beyond the institution. He was a prolific speaker, participating in several international meetings and symposiums, including speaking in all fifty states. His work on infectious diseases also led to a collaborative project with NASA during the Apollo missions. His research with the laminar airflow rooms was considered for preventing extraterrestrial contamination from space.

He also participated in an American-Soviet chemotherapy program to share cancer treatment knowledge between the United States and the Soviet Union. While the program was not as successful as hoped, it germinated the idea of expanding the model to other countries, albeit with mixed results.

Identifier

BodeyG_01_20030303_C08

Publication Date

3-3-2003

City

Houston, Texas

Topics Covered

The Researcher; Activities Outside Institution; Beyond the Institution; Professional Practice; The Professional at Work

Transcript

Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD:

I’ve been involved in a lot of things. I participated in a lot of international meetings and symposiums and so on. As a matter of fact, I think I’ve traveled more than fifty—I lectured, I think, in around forty countries over the course of my career, and in all fifty states. But one thing actually that is interesting is our relationship with NASA.

Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:

Oh. Good point. I just had some reference requests from them in the last week or two.

Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD:

When they started planning to go to the moon, the lunar—

Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:

Apollo?

Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD:

Hmm?

Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:

Apollo?

Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD:

Yeah. The Apollo, the first manned spacecraft. They recognized that they didn’t know what would happen if somebody lands on the moon, whether they’d pick up some kind of something that was an infectious agent that we weren’t exposed to here on earth. What on earth were they going to do if such a thing happened? So let’s see here. I don’t even know. Oh, preventative medicine division of the space flight, the lunar—I don’t remember. I have it on some plaque at home that I got. But anyway, they created this group to deal with if they had a problem. One of their concerns was if one of the astronauts came back and picked up something and got sick, how were they going to handle it? They were focused initially on handling it at NASA, but then they began to think about, well, supposing they need more sophisticated care than we can deliver? So, I don't know. Somehow they got onto us, and our laminar airflow units were designed to protect the patient inside the unit. But you could turn the system around so the airflow was in the opposite direction and would protect the exterior from contamination from what was in the room. We worked out some kind of an arrangement with them, that if they needed such a facility that we would be prepared to provide it to them. As a consequence, I was involved in somewhat of a peripheral role, but they had it arranged so that if somebody did come back and was sick and possibly had some contagious disease, that there were specialists in multiple disciplines of medicine who were in the armed forces. They would be the primary people providing care. Then they would have a second cadre of people who were specialists who were outside consultants, and they would be involved, but they wouldn’t have to expose themselves to picking up whatever it was. So I was in sort of that group. I don't think we ever had a meeting of everybody together, but I went down there several times, and they came up here to examine our laminar airflow facility, and we had this liaison with them. That’s what would be done. Fortunately, of course, nothing ever came of it. So I was a part of the lunar team for the Air Force manned space flights, which was nice, because it gave me—if I wanted to take somebody down to NASA, I got a special guided tour through places that nobody else—the general public—didn’t have access to, but it didn’t really involve any great commitment on my part.

Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:

I’m embarrassed to admit I can’t remember when the Apollo was. Was that the ‘60s or the early ‘70s?

Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD:

1970.

Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:

I should—’70. Okay.

Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD:

It’s ’70, ‘71, I guess. Anyways, somewhere around there.

Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:

That was a big thing. It was the place to go when you came here in that time period. You go to the Astrodome, and you go to NASA.

Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD:

I was very delighted to be involved in that. I was involved in some international activities with the National Cancer Institute. It was part of the American/Soviet chemotherapy program for a while, and we were trying to have this détente with the Soviets, and so Cancer Institute was sharing drugs, and of course, it was pretty much one-sided. They didn’t have too much to share with us, and the few things they had to share weren’t terribly useful. They came over here. We went over there. I remember one time I was at NCI for a meeting or something. They had a group of these people that needed somebody to take them around Washington, so I sort of took them around the city and all that. It was interesting because there was one fellow there who spoke English very well, and he would sort of sidle up to me at museums and things, and point out, “The guy over there, he’s not a monitor. He’s the KGB.”

Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:

And he was probably right?

Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD:

Well, I’m sure he was right. It wouldn’t benefit him by telling me. He just said, “That guy is not involved.”

Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:

I was afraid for a minute that little pause, he was going to offer to defect or something. You know I was waiting for a big revelation.

Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD:

No, he didn’t do that. So I was on that, and I actually went to a meeting—

Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:

Excuse me just a minute. (End of Audio 3)

Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:

0:00:02 .5 Our last side, you started to say—

Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD:

Yeah. During one of those meetings in Moscow, I was with Franco Muggia, who was then in charge of the extramural chemotherapy program at the National Cancer Institute. I don't know that he was in charge. He was involved in it.

Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:

What was the last name again?

Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD:

Franco Muggia. M-U-G-G-I-A. I forget where he is right now. I think he’s in New York City somewhere. At any rate, I forget exactly what his title was, but he was heavily involved in the extramural chemotherapy program, and we were there together and meeting, and I was talking, and I said, “You know, it’d be kind of nice if we did something like this for South America.” And so we chatted about it. He had actually come from South America originally, and—

Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:

Do you need to catch that? I’ll just put this on pause.

Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD:

So anyway, we got to talking about it, and the end result of it was that he was able to get the National Cancer Institute and the Pan-American Health Organization to get together, and we got some of the cancer centers here in the United States to work with some of the cancer centers down in South America. I don't know. Not an awful lot came of that. I mean, what happened was it became sort of an effort to do collaborative research, and that really wasn’t what we started out with. Our idea was just to sort of have some kind of an interrelationship where they would have access to institutions, be more of a teaching kind of program than doing research. But the NCI developed it into a research program, and that really didn’t work terribly well. I tried to do a couple—I was working with the National Cancer Institute in Rio de Janeiro and tried to do some studies there. We did eventually end up getting one of them published, but it was very difficult, particularly at that time. Most of the countries were really not set up to do that sort of thing, and in Brazil, they tried. They took me out and showed me that most of their patients were coming from the favelas, and I’d go out and finally told them I wanted to see one of these. They didn’t even want to take me to one of them. I finally talked them into it, but they’re a little bit distant. They wouldn’t let me walk down the streets.

Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:

I’ve lived there. I’ve lived there.

Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD:

It was a real problem in terms of followup and that kind of thing. So they tried, but it was ill conceived.

Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:

Sanitation.

Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD:

So eventually NCI dropped the whole thing because we were getting publications of great scientific advances as a consequence, but that really wasn’t what we had in mind. It did work out well for a while. We had a relationship, and I’d go down and lecture, then they’d go to scientific meetings and spend a few days here and that sort of thing, which is exactly what we had in mind from the beginning. So that was one of the things, and I was involved in—I don't know. I was on an advisory board for a variety of things.

Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:

How much of your time does the kind of committee work—or did, I should say—of your whole day—

Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD:

Committee work?

Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:

—how much does the kind of committee work and advisory side take up?

Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD:

Oh, not a great deal. I doubt if it took up more than ten percent, fifteen percent of my total time. Now the international stuff, of course, that would be different, because we might have to go out of the country or something. But I wasn’t that much involved in those kinds of activities. I was more—I didn’t have a great interest in doing that kind of—well, that sort of thing. I didn’t mind, but I wasn’t heavily involved in professional societies and all that sort of thing. I straddled these two different fields, and if I’d gotten involved in them, I could spend all my time just running around from one scientific meeting to another. For a while, I was pretty much involved with the American Society of Clinical Oncology. I was doing a lot of oncology work and actually served as a program director when Dr. Freireich was the president of that society. But beyond that, I really didn’t take a very active role in the scientific societies because it was just so much time in a day. That wasn’t something I was terribly interested in.

Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:

Well, you must’ve had a busy time. You were caring for patients, teaching.

Gerald P. Bodey, Sr, MD:

Well, we don’t have a great teaching program. It’s more organized now than it was at that time. Most of your teaching was going around with the fellows and that sort of thing. I did do some teaching in the medical school, but not an awful lot. I spent a lot of my time doing research, writing papers, and administrative duties and so on. I was pretty busy.

Lesley Williams Brunet, CA:

Pretty busy. I don’t want to make you talk too long, but I did want to ask you before—we can always do another session. But I never really asked you about what made you decide to go into medicine. Weren’t there other people here? Didn’t Dr. Gerald Dodd go to Lafayette?

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Chapter 08: Professional Activities and Working with NASA and NCI

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