Chapter: 15 Reflections on Contributions, Colleagues, and MD Anderson
Files
Loading...
Description
Reflecting on his career, Dr. Bodey says that he feels that “God blessed me greatly.” It was a “wonderful experience,” he says, to work with the new drugs coming out and make a difference for patients.
Dr. Bodey offers a personal view of Dr. J Freireich, describing his generosity and expressing his deep personal affection for him.
Dr. Bodey reiterates that it was a privilege and honor to work at MD Anderson. He then speaks briefly on his research on the effectiveness of the laminar air flow protective environments. He then offers an overview of how MD Anderson evolved, under Dr. R. Lee Clark’s leadership, from one building into a huge complex. He notes that Dr. Clark could be dictatorial at times but led MD Anderson successfully. Dr. Bodey concludes the interview by noting that he wrote many publications and received opportunities that most people do not over the course of his career.
Identifier
BodeyGP_03_20130723_C15
Publication Date
7-23-2013
City
Houston, Texas
Interview Session
Gerald P. Bodey Sr., MD, Oral History Interview, July 23, 2013
Topics Covered
The Interview Subject's Story - View on Career and AccomplishmentsFaith Personal Background Career and Accomplishments Character, Values, Beliefs, Talents; Portraits Offering Care, Compassion, Help Giving Recognition
Transcript
Gerald P. Bodey Sr., MD:
God blessed me greatly. It wasn’t that I was so great; it’s just that He’s great. He gave me these opportunities over the years to see infections that at one time we couldn’t control at all being cured, new drugs coming out that really made a difference for the patients. It was really a wonderful experience, and I’m very grateful that I had the opportunity to participate in all that, and also my colleagues that I had to work with. CLIP C: Portraits C: Offering Care, Compassion, Help C: Giving Recognition A Personal View of J Freireich Dr. Freireich is a remarkable man. I mean, he’s still working. I’m sitting at home, and he’s still—he’s about five years older than I am, and he still goes to work every day. He has a special place in my heart. He and I became very good friends over the years. I first started working with him, when I went to the National Cancer Institute and worked with him three years there. Then when I finished up a year of residency, that’s when he came down here and I came down. I’ve been here with him ever since. We’ve had a lot of experiences together, and I have a very, very high regard for him. He’s a brilliant man, and he’s a wonderful person. He does things that are just—nobody else would do. One of our laboratory doctors had gone over to Florida, if I remember correctly, and was working over there, and he got sick. Dr. Freireich learned about it and went over there and thought he wasn’t being cared for. He brought him back over here. I mean, he just did it. He did things like that, not every day, but every once in a while he would get involved in somebody’s needs and do something that nobody else would do. I mean, I would never think of going and getting one of our former associates over here from Florida, without knowing who was going to pay the bills or anything. He just is an amazing man. I don’t often talk about loving other men, but I’ve got a real deep love for him. He’s been a good friend over the years. I feel real privileged to have been able to work with him all the time.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
That’s wonderful. That’s wonderful. And it sounds like together, you and he and other colleagues, really made a difference for people in terms of doing the work to discover treatment—to discover things that were going to really help people.
Gerald P. Bodey Sr., MD:
Yes. There were other places, too, where that happened. But we had a well-organized program here at MD Anderson, and it came a long way from what it was like when we first came and the way it is nowadays. It’s quite a bit different, as it should be over all these years. But it was really a privilege to work with him, a privilege to work here, and privileged to travel around the world and give lectures and all. So I feel greatly blessed.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Is there anything else you’d like to add at this point?
Gerald P. Bodey Sr., MD:
I think I’ve talked enough, haven’t I? If there’s anything else you’d like to ask me, I’ll be happy to try to answer. I’ll give you all these papers here. When we had the laminar airflow facility there, we did develop a lot of things, like ways of quantitating contamination in a room and topical regimens to kind of eliminate the organisms from the skin and the throat and so on. So there were a lot of things that we developed. Unfortunately, they didn’t turn out to be useful apart from laminar airflow rooms, and they sort of fell out of favor because they’re very expensive. They made it much more difficult to take care of the patient when you had to do all this before you could go in. I don’t know. Did you see that landmark paper from Internal Medicine? Did we talk about that?
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
The one that’s cited so often? The one that’s on the circulating—?
Gerald P. Bodey Sr., MD:
Well, this is the one that the Annals of Internal Medicine picked out. I don’t know how many papers they picked out over the years. They had eleven disciplines of medicine, and they picked three papers in each discipline. My paper was one of the three in infectious diseases.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
What’s the title of it?
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
It’s in the Annals of Internal Medicine, 1966. “Quantitative Relationships Between Circulating Leukocytes and Infection in Patients with Acute Leukemia.” Yes. We did talk about that. And that’s the one that’s been cited like over 1700 times or something like that. Very impressive.
Gerald P. Bodey Sr., MD:
Well, I think you’ve heard enough about me now. But there were some real great accomplishments that occurred at MD Anderson. I mean, it started out as this one building with—I guess it was six floors high—maybe six or seven floors high. Part of it was a hospital, and then there was another section that was for laboratory space. Then they started to expand over the years, and now they have several buildings around. They’re taking over the whole city of Houston. It’s really been incredible how everything developed, and I think a lot of that credit goes to Dr. Clark. Dr. Clark was an amazing man. He knew what he wanted done, and he made sure it got done. He was—I got to know him over time, and he was rather kind of frightening at first, because here’s this great Dr. Clark, and I’m just this newcomer and all that. But over—he was very dictatorial at times. I can remember one time when we had a meeting that I attended and they were discussing whether they were going to do something or other; I think it was go over to Center Pavilion. He said, “Okay, gentleman.” He listened to the heads of the various departments express their opinions. It was putting in the two laminar air filter rooms; that was it. When they were done talking he said, “Okay, we’re not doing it. End of story.” I don’t know who got through to him afterward to talk him into doing it, but he could be very dogmatic. But he did a very, very good job directing MD Anderson over the years. He deserves a lot of credit for what—but there were a lot of people, too, who were very devoted to doing a good job at MD Anderson—nurses, and pharmacists and even the people who cleaned the floors. It was really a unique place. Unfortunately, there were some antagonisms. The biggest problem was us coming and being planted in when there was already a Department of Medicine.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
You’re talking about Developmental Therapeutics?
Gerald P. Bodey Sr., MD:
Yes, but over time that wore off too. It really was a—it still is—a wonderful place, and they’ve done great things in the life of many cancer patients.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Thank you very much.
Gerald P. Bodey Sr., MD:
And as I said before, I feel blessed by God that I had the opportunity to come here, because that wasn’t what I intended to do. I told you about all that. I never had any—I didn’t even know anything about MD Anderson, so I was really greatly blessed. I have—I think you have it there—I have something like 1100 manuscripts over the years. I didn’t write them all. I think it came out to about 430 that I actually wrote. It was an opportunity that most people don’t get. I had the opportunity to travel around the world a good bit. I think I’ve been in something like sixty different countries. Most of those, at least forty of them, I’ve lectured in at one time or another. It was certainly not something I anticipated when I first started out in medicine.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Amazing opportunities.
Gerald P. Bodey Sr., MD:
It’s a great institution.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Gerald P. Bodey Sr., MD:
No, I don’t think so. I just want to emphasize that I recognize that all that I have came to me from God. I’m a Christian, and I’m very grateful for what God gave me. It wasn’t what I did; it was what He did through me. I got to meet a lot of wonderful people and patients who were amazing in having to face up to a fatal disease. It’s been a great experience.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Thank you very much, Dr. Bodey. I’m really glad we had an opportunity to do this third session.
Gerald P. Bodey Sr., MD:
I hope I gave you something useful here. Don’t hesitate to cut out anything. I don’t want you to have more pages here. I don’t know what else I have. I have all kinds of stuff, but you don’t want to see all of it. Do you have a copy of my bibliography? Tacey Ann Rosolowski PhD I do.
Gerald P. Bodey Sr., MD:
Mr. Garza has one, I know.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
Yes. He does, yes.
Gerald P. Bodey Sr., MD:
I’ve been impressed with him, you know what I mean? I mean, having to start this up and all, I think that’s really a great accomplishment. I’m quite impressed with him. I have to get down there again and look around a bit. I haven’t been down in a long time now. [Redacted]
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
I bet. Well, Dr. Bodey, let me just turn off the recorder now. There’s nothing else you would like to add at this point?
Gerald P. Bodey Sr., MD:
No, no, no. I’ve taken way too much of your time as it is.
Tacey Ann Rosolowski, PhD:
No. I’m at your disposal. Well, I’m turning off the recorder at 2:20. Thank you very much.
Gerald P. Bodey Sr., MD:
You’re welcome.
Recommended Citation
Bodey, Gerald P. MD and Rosolowski, Tacey A. PhD, "Chapter: 15 Reflections on Contributions, Colleagues, and MD Anderson" (2013). Interview Chapters. 999.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/999
Conditions Governing Access
Redacted
