Have The Corleones Moved To Houston?
By
Leonard Zwelling
As I mentioned in a recent blog, every once in a while, I am asked to help current MD Anderson faculty members navigate difficult situations that threaten to upend their careers. Most of the time the faculty member’s problem amounts to more powerful members of the faculty, their chairs, or even vice presidents having greater concern for maintaining their power than for the academic integrity of the institution and the well-being of the institution’s future–junior faculty. And, please, don’t even mention justice (see future blog).
Over the past year or two, I have given this a lot of thought. Was this always the case at MD Anderson? Were those high up in the org chart flexing their political muscle to the detriment of the young faculty like I was in 1984? I can only limit my assessment of past and present political environments to my own experience, of course.
Those most helpful to me early in my MD Anderson days were the senior faculty in my department (especially Walter Hittelman) and outside my department (Mike Siciliano and Ray Meyn), my Division Head (Irv Krakoff), the Vice President of Research (Fred Becker), the Vice President for Patient Care (David Hohn), and President LeMaistre. All of those higher on the org chart wanted me to succeed. They were generous with their time and resources. Without them, I never would have had a successful lab program, gone to business school, and become a vice president myself.
As a vice president, I had the immense fortune of working for Chief Academic Officer Margaret Kripke, a person who never encountered a problem she couldn’t see both sides of and attempt to resolve the disagreement at the heart of the dispute. She coached me through more than one of these faculty issues, from instances of research misconduct to violations of the Code of Federal Regulations in the conduct of human subjects research.
Today what I see are vice presidents, Division Heads, and department chairs far more concerned about amassing power and using the young faculty for their own advancement. But what I also see is a hierarchy that looks more like that of an organized crime family than an academic cancer center and there is no doubt about who is The Don and whether or not The Don can eliminate anyone else on the org chart on a whim. Pisters doesn’t have a Faculty Senate to oppose his impetuous actions any longer. In fact, he refuses to create a representative body as is permitted under UT rules that could advise him on the needs of the faculty and I don’t mean committees that he appoints. I mean committees composed of faculty chosen by their fellow rank-and-file faculty.
The people in the very positions that were instrumental in my success now bow to The Don, do his bidding, and are more than willing to snuff out a career or two to make those high up in The Family happy.
MD Anderson has been transformed from the best place to grow up and to grow as a cancer physician or investigator to an environment that can best be described as dog eat dog with lawyers refereeing the dog fights.
This is a sad development, but one that was inevitable given the men in the presidential chair since 2001. MD Anderson has been run like a criminal organization—more now than ever. In court, in Austin, on Holcombe, the bad guys win every time. And what’s worse, there are no any good guys in sight.
At some point, and the point may have already been reached, either the Don will make a fatal mistake (while buying fruit? While merging with Texas Children’s Hospital) or, more likely, those faculty who aren’t “made men” will leave.
Again, I believe that an outside audit objectively evaluating the success of MD Anderson’s adherence to its mission as well as the manner in which some of the academic leadership behave is in order. I have seen too much chaos and far too much nastiness in my limited interaction with the maltreated faculty to believe that these are isolated examples. The current environment at Anderson nurtures no one beyond those who already have much—power, money, stature.
Where’s the academic equivalent of Eliot Ness when you need him?
