Then, They Were Giants; Now, They’d Be Fired
By
Leonard Zwelling
I just posted a piece about how I like dealing with small venues in most aspects of my interpersonal and business life. That includes my life as a patient. One of the places I cited as having been small enough once so that one faculty member could know all the rest of the faculty was MD Anderson. Of course, those were the days of the PRS “Prom,” a spectacular, annual gala honoring the faculty and specifically retirees. Now, you are lucky if you see a retiree’s picture on the wall. Shameful. There is no institutional memory.
One of the other unique aspects of MD Anderson when we arrived was its high tolerance for unusual personalities. None was more notable than that of J Freireich. Dr. Freireich had already made major contributions to the treatment of leukemia. He virtually invented combination chemotherapy and the cell separator. In running Developmental Therapeutics at Anderson he advanced the careers of dozens of world-class investigators. However, Dr. Freireich could be a handle to deal with. He roared frequently and was very impatient. His criteria for adequacy for a clinical trialist was whether or not he or she had “developed a treatment.” Now it isn’t many people who invent a successful treatment for cancer. The BW was one so Dr. Freireich was OK with her.
Dr. Freireich could be dismissive, confrontational, bombastic, and insulting. He could also get the best out of most everyone who worked with him. You wanted to impress him. You wanted to please him. His style would now be considered unprofessional. He wouldn’t last a week in the Pisters Era of being nice rather than being productive.
And while we are on the subject of difficult people, was there anyone more difficult to deal with than Josh Fidler? No. My first encounter with Josh was hearing him speak at the AACR meeting in 1981 when he first presented his findings on liposome-encapsulated muramyl-tripeptide as an agent for eradicating pulmonary metastases in mice. That was the day that Dr. Kleinerman realized the potential for that drug to cure kids with osteogenic sarcoma. It’s a red-letter day in our household.
Josh was funny, of course. Always. But as I got to know him, when Genie began her work with him in Frederick, Maryland before we all migrated to MD Anderson, I found Josh to be both loving and obstreperous. He was impossible to argue with. He enjoyed opining in a meeting at high volume. The only person I knew who could successfully deal with him was his wife Dr. Margaret Kripke. Even Dr. Mendelsohn struggled to corral Josh.
Josh could say some outrageous things and many would take offense at what he said. That didn’t make him wrong at all. He was right most of the time, but aggressively so. Today such behavior would be considered politically incorrect—unprofessional. Then, we knew we were hearing something worth thinking about. Now, he would have been fired.
There were many very opinionated people at Anderson back then—including me. Many of them would have crossed today’s line and ventured into the territory of unprofessional behavior. Back then it was all part of the concentrated, high-powered intellectual environment of MD Anderson. Yes, it was a bit crazy at times, but we were all having a good time and doing good at the same time.
I feel badly for today’s faculty. They all must bottle up their emotions for fear of being called unprofessional. That means their passion is in check as well and if there was one thing that filled the air at MD Anderson in 1984, it was passion. It’s a shame that’s been lost. Without passion, what’s the point of being a physician or scientist?
This unprofessional behavior stuff is nonsense that has been put in place by the woke, yet inadequate, leadership that wouldn’t know greatness if it bit them in the you-know-where. I mourn for the MD Anderson of creative intellectual combat that has given way to mediocrity and small thinking about cancer albeit large thinking about Press Ganey patient satisfaction scores, high ratings in know-nothing lay journals, and expansive cancer networks.
Recently, I told a friend of long-standing that he would not recognize the MD Anderson of today. He needs to hold the memory of the MD Anderson of the 20th century close to his heart. We may not see the likes of it again. For cancer physicians, clinical trialists, and basic cancer researchers, then, it was Camelot.
