Hey Peter, Be Like Joe

Hey Peter, Be Like Joe

By

Leonard Zwelling

One of the regular features of this blog over its ten or more years in circulation has been constant criticism of the leadership of MD Anderson Cancer Center.

It began during the administration of Ron DePinho. He and his group of executives were poorly suited to leading a major academic cancer center. DePinho was not an oncologist and his team was rife with amateur administrators and non-stellar scientists and clinical investigators. Dr. DePinho did not take the high road and the system dealt with him accordingly thanks to strong leadership in Austin. Unfortunately, that formidable leadership in Austin is gone and replaced by leadership as weak as that in the Pickens Building today.

Peter Pisters is the epitome of the anti-DePinho. He is not a scientist nor a clinical investigator of importance. He has had administrative experience, but that hasn’t seemed to serve him well particularly in assembling an A-list team. His team is not A-list and with the recent resignation of the Chief Medical Executive he has yet another chance to hire some talent. I suspect he will miss the opportunity to find greatness as he usually does.

Even since the last few scandal-ridden years of the Mendelsohn administration, MD Anderson has been functioning without steady leadership. It’s been more than 20 years. DePinho, to his credit, was visionary. He was also profligate, nepotistic, and autocratic. These are not characteristics of good leadership. Pisters has managed with his weaponization of professionalism, advocacy of DEI, and total ignorance of science to lower the bar even further at the UT cancer center.

I have heard more than one faculty member describe the atmosphere at Anderson as toxic and I think that is a fair assessment. Just as Joe Biden could not not be old, Peter Pisters cannot not be floundering. Witness the awful and unconscionable response to Hurricane Beryl. Faculty were confused. Staff were confused. Patients were confused. And this was all because leadership was confused.

I think the jury is in on the Pisters Administration just as it was on the DePinho era. Time for a change.

The culture Pisters brought to MD Anderson is beyond correctable. It must be replaced by patient-centered clinical leadership and A-grade scientists doing world-class science. This is not the case now with a few exceptions.

Dr. Pisters, follow Joe’s lead. Step down. Give someone else a chance. MD Anderson has been wandering in the leadership desert for twenty years. Need it be a Biblical forty?