Match Your Values

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Okay, well at the Anderson we have a very strong expectation of ourselves. There is a tremendous peer pressure to be great at what we do. I always say there’s two worlds at the MD Anderson. There’s the outside world where you go present your papers, give talks, pharmaceutical companies meet you at the airport with a limousine, and you sit in on the dais at international conferences. Then there’s a world here where people judge you by how you treat the patients they send you and how the patients you send them have been treated. And to be successful at the MD Anderson, you have to be successful in both worlds. People used to complain to me—common complaint—they would come see me and they would say, “When I travel outside of Houston, people treat me with real respect. They understand my accomplishments. And I come back here and they treat me like dirt.” How many times did people when I was executive? I used to say to them, “Look, you want to be treated well here, you need to be here—not touring the country. You need to be here seeing patients, letting people see how you perform and how you deliver care. You want people to respect you? They’re going to respect you for the care you delivered to their patients. And you can’t do that if you’re out lecturing five days a week.” So we have two worlds here and we have two grading systems. And I assure you, the internal grading system is totally unswayed by the external grading system. You can win all the prizes at the national meetings, but if you’re not perceived as a good doctor here, you’re not perceived at performing at that really high level, people won’t give you the time of day. And it will drive you crazy.