It’s Never Good When They Leave Quickly
By
Leonard Zwelling
Dr. Jennifer Shuford just resigned as the Deputy Director of the CDC. She had been in the job only since April. She is a highly-respected former Texas health commissioner who oversaw the Texas response to the measles threat in that state. The New York Times speculated that she is leaving because she cannot abide by the Trump Administration’s poor response to the measles outbreaks in Pennsylvania. She has not commented yet herself on her reasons for departing so soon.
Dr. Shuford sounds like a smart, capable person. Why she thought by joining this administration that she could change the trajectory of anything supervised by HHS Secretary Kennedy about vaccination from sheer lunacy to science-based and patient-centric escapes me. I guess she figured it out fast.
It’s never good when someone competent leaves a job in under six months although it does speak to their possible naivite or to some deception on the part of those who appointed them.
It is also not good when someone in an important and powerful job for a longer time leaves that job abruptly and without explanation. Of course, I am referring to the former president of MD Anderson, Peter Pisters. He seemed headed for a long tenure given the putatively good financial footing MD Anderson was on during his watch as well Anderson’s continued recognition for being the number one place for cancer care in the country. Dr. Pisters was also in line for a large raise and had begun a number of ambitious building projects—the new clinic tower, the Kinder Children’s Cancer Center, his own new hospital, and the MD Anderson presence in Austin, albeit at variance from its initial larger foot print. What the heck happened?
Is it really important that anyone know why Dr. Pisters picked this moment to walk away?
Perhaps it is. If this is because of his own illness or that of a family member, he probably should have said that without disclosing any confidential details. But, he didn’t even stay long enough after his “retirement” announcement to usher in his successor as had both Drs. LeMaistre and Mendelsohn. Why not?
One of the things emphasized by the current UT System leadership is the relative autonomy of each medical and academic campus. The presidents of these institutions can do just about anything on their respective campuses that they care to including firing faculty for no reason or removing entire departments. It is logical to infer, then, that Dr. Pisters must have gotten crossways with something far beyond 1515 Holcombe because short of committing a felony in Houston, his job should have been safe. The non-Houston cause of his separation is most likely to have been something having to do with the MD Anderson presence in Austin which had changed from a plan for a free-standing hospital downtown to one of being a part of the Dell Campus and the AI hospital in the Domain. Perhaps Dr. Pisters resisted the plans of the Chancellor or of Michael Dell in this regard. Perhaps Mr. Dell was as unimpressed as the rest of us with Dr. Pisters’ management of AI at Anderson. Having just returned from my meeting in Durham, North Carolina as part of the Duke Medical School Board of Visitors, I was in awe of the efforts of Dean Mary Klotman to integrate AI into everything that Duke Health is doing from patient care to research to education. AI companies are flocking to Duke to partner in developing applications for AI in all three of the areas the Dean identified for us last Friday, October 23. The Duke plan puts the Anderson efforts in the AI area to shame. Perhaps, Mr. Dell thought the same thing.
The last thing that could have torpedoed the Pisters presidency is politics. Maybe some high-ranking legislator wanted his wife’s gynecologist to lead MD Anderson and convinced the governor of the wisdom of such a move. However, I doubt this. I believe that the Board of Regents has had just about enough of MD Anderson presidents leaving prematurely. No one wanted this.
Maybe they will have better applicants for the job this time. That is why it might have been a good idea to know the truth about the Pisters’ retirement. What are potential applicants to think about the whimsy of the leaders of the UT System to relieve someone of responsibility without cause? If I were applying for the MD Anderson presidency, the first person I would like to phone up is Peter Pisters. Again, what the heck happened?
The overwhelming, most likely reason that Dr. Pisters was not renewed for a third five-year term as president, which would have gotten him to 15 years in the job and just over 70 years of age like Clark, LeMaistre, and Mendelsohn before him at their retirements, is that he got on the bad side of a major player. That player is most likely to be Michael Dell who knows a few things about computers and their application to practical fields like medicine.
It is very possible that Mr. Dell looked at what was happening badly at Anderson from the use of AI to law suits by and against faculty to faculty discontent and said, “we can do better.”
I hope Mr. Dell is involved with the selection of the next MD Anderson president. We can safely assume that in his case, we have someone with good insight into quality, something that the UT System leadership has shown it lacks given its last two choices to lead MD Anderson.
Let’s hope.
