Title
Challenges of Credibility at the County General Hospital in Milwaukee, WI
Files
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Identifier
KomakiR_02_20181127_Clip04
Publication Date
11-27-2018
Publisher
The Making Cancer History® Voices Oral History Collection, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
City
Houston, Texas
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Transcript
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD
How long did it take before the surgeons kind of accepted that you knew your stuff and could bring something to them?
R. Komaki, MD
You know, I had to publish papers [to be accepted by them]. So I decided to publish a paper per month. I decided, because my English was not good enough and I looked very young when I was a senior resident then junior attending.
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD
And you’re a woman.
R. Komaki, MD
And nobody listened. I’m a woman, and nobody would listen to me. So I decided to publish a paper and I put Richard Mattingly’s name on it, because all those patients, he operated those patients, so I gave him credit and I put his name on. He totally mellowed after that. So, I had done a lot of [things to convince surgeons and medical oncologists to believe me] but publication is so important. I had to read many papers [before I let them at] the tumor board, read the references. Jim Cox influenced me. He went to the library, read all different kinds of cancer journals [about all sites and all modalities]. Every Saturday and Sunday he was reading all the library’s books related to cancer. What he was reading, that was surgical and medical oncology, as well as radiation oncology. He read all those journals so quickly and around that time, I was reading all cancer textbooks. I was so impressed by his knowledge, putting all those updated information to create multidisciplinary [approach for cancer treatment]. That’s what I wanted to learn and I tried to soak in everything of what he knew. That’s what I wanted to give message to other modality [oncologists].
T.A. Rosolowski, PhD
How long did it take before people began to accept—that you began to establish real credibility?
R. Komaki, MD
It took a long time, it took at least five years. When I started to put their names on for publication, maybe two years, three years. But to really convince them, it took five years. When I went to Columbia University, oh that was a different story, nobody wanted to listen to me.
Recommended Citation
Komaki, Ritsuko MD and Rosolowski, Tacey A. PhD, "Challenges of Credibility at the County General Hospital in Milwaukee, WI" (2018). Race, Gender, & Work @ The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center: Triumphs of Houston’s Leading Hospital. 36.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_racegenderwork/36
