What Trump Gets And Pisters Doesn’t
By
Leonard Zwelling
In Peggy Noonan’s column in The Wall Street Journal on June 7, she points out how the Republicans are in the dominant position in American politics and the Democrats appear lost. Neither is an absolute. Neither is irrevocable.
The Republicans’ position atop the government wholly depends upon Donald Trump. Without the Trump cult of personality covering the larger cult of Trump family corruption, America would probably throw the bums out. But Trump keeps articulating his commonality with the values held by most Americans. He gets average Americans. Most Americans would be anti-immigration, anti-DEI, and anti-cultural progressive beliefs. Of course, having as your predecessor a demented old man doesn’t hurt either. If nothing else, you have to give Trump credit for impeccable timing. He came along at the precise moment America was ready for him in 2016 and then did it again with the help of an inept Democratic president, vice president, and entire party apparatus in 2024. The Dems misread everything. Trump misread nothing.
The Dems now have a choice. They can use the mid-terms to move back to the middle and retake the House by demonstrating that they too can understand traditional American values or the Dems can grind on their progressive, coastal nonsense and lose while winning a few seats back in the House. If they choose the latter, welcome President Vance in 2028. In a way, Vance is even more cynical than Trump. Trump is a bit of an anti-intellectual bore. Vance knows better and we know he knows better. He has chosen to go down the MAGA road to self-aggrandizement and future power.
So, in essence, if the beliefs articulated by the top of the Republican party resonate most strongly with the sentiments of the people being governed, that party has a leg up. Trump has convinced America he feels its pain. The Dems have not.
At MD Anderson, the leadership is playing the role of the Congressional Democrats—lost at sea and earless, maybe even heartless, let alone rudderless. Dr. Pisters and his Executive Leadership team have demonstrated once again during the recent Faculty Senate town hall that they deeply do not understand the concerns of most of the faculty which is not to work on Saturday, but to be creative to the extent possible during the week. For most faculty it is not about their personal wealth, but the well-being of their patients and the impact of their research.
That such a critical issue as Saturday clinics could be discussed and President Pisters be absent says it all. But, you cannot run an institution devoted to research-driven patient care using a team containing no real clinical investigators at the top or in the position as the chief scientist. Heck, John Mendelsohn represented all of that all by himself.
As I was pointing out to some young faculty recently, this downward slide in Anderson’s leadership in patient-based cancer research is co-temporal with John Mendelsohn’s conflict of interest and legal troubles surrounding his associations with Enron and ImClone and his handing over the keys to the kingdom to the lawyers in the person of Dan Fontaine initially, and then ever more lawyers doing what used to be faculty functions, now even including the Research Integrity Officer who is not only not a faculty member, but isn’t even in Houston. Then came Ron. Then came Peter. And here we are!
Donald Trump truly has his pulse on the American psyche. Whether anyone else in the GOP can be as sentient remains to be seen.
Peter Pisters has no clue as to what concerns or drives his own faculty. A vote of no confidence after the recent Senate town hall is probably in order. We know Pisters has been on the job market. Apparently, he did not sufficiently impress the decision-makers at NYU. Don’t you wonder where else he is looking? Don’t you hope he can convince some other group to hire him? Soon.
8 thoughts on “What Trump Gets And Pisters Doesn’t”
Another week, another silly accolade for Pisters that was bought and paid for.
It does not go unnoticed that our leaders have to buy recognition. If you think leadership on the clinical side is lacking, it is worse for research. The tres hombres of research leadership (Pisters, Draetta, Gottlieb) would be unknown were it not for their executive positions at Anderson. Leaders at MSKCC and DFCI have individual scientific accomplishments which speak for themselves.
Trying to understand how this trio, with a single federal grant amongst themselves (lifetime, none currently), can effectively lead during the current crisis in biomedical research.
Answer: They cannot. It has been a long downhill drift for Anderson research. Anderson has regressed to the mean in academic oncology and it’s a shame.
The leadership’s hypocrisy and blatant disregard for faculty has eroded the morale. There is no sense of feeling valued as an individual; it’s all about the revenue & purchased reputation.
Honestly, I’m not even sure the leadership values the patients and physicians’ impacts beyond the dollar generated. If there were an authentic prioritization of quality & safety coupled with efficiency, weekday schedules would be maxed out rather than forcing saturday schedules when ancillary services are significantly less equipped. Moreover, justifying this on a negative margin makes NO sense when faculty & staff are being heartily compensated…to the degree that causes me to doubt the day will turn a profit. But is that justification the true motive, or is it all for show for the Board of Regents?
Tough to really have faith in a president who is basically a hologram, spending more time in Colorado. Not only does the Research Integrity Officer not live in Houston, the Chief Wellbeing Officer lives in Florida & the Chief Quality Officer lives in New England.
Jane:
Thanks for your comments and thanks for reading.
I wholly agree with your assessment. I doubt this is for the BoR. What I doubt is that anyone has actually calculated the cost of the NEXT patient. This is what is needed to know whether Saturday clinics are even profitable. My guess is that the institution will spend more than these extra patients bring in to staff the clinics.
I am just glad I do not work there any more as I could not survive in any of my proveious roles (and that includes as Reserch Integrity officer of many years).
It is truly sad.
Keep redaing.
LZ
So if not a show for BoR then what is the true motive… it cant be actual revenue. I dont buy that.
How about incompetence?
Jane – You are right on target. It is precisely because we have a Chief Quality Officer AND Chief Administrative Quality Officer, and no one can understand the redundancy. Is our quality that poor and in need of so much oversight? Both are handsomely compensated. We have a Chief Wellness Officer and an Associate Vice President for Art Experience. The Chief Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Officer was quietly re-branded as a VP. We are paying nurses to stay home and be remote “navigators” with questionable benefit to the clinical workflow. We have research leaders making in excess of one million dollars per year salary with no track record of securing extramural funding. There’s an entire sector of the organization doing who knows what in Africa under the auspices of ‘Global Oncology’ with no possible return on investment. The spending is profligate, meanwhile I can’t get adequate support in my department or my clinic. At this point, I believe they are just trying to avoid negative headlines in the Chronicle. The leadership is image-obsessed, and negative press has a tendency to de-stabilize. So, it is a monthly game of trying to cover executive expenses, while blaming the financial problem on tariffs and other market externalities.
Only two groups can change the current mess. The Board of Regents or the faculty. Neither seems likely instigate a change in leadership, but both should be doing a lot more to change the executives at Anderson.