Courage
By
Leonard Zwelling
https://www.lenzwelling.com/2026/03/extra-an-e-mail-out-of-the-blue/
“we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”
If you don’t recognize the line above, shame on you. It is the final phrase of the Declaration of Independence. In essence, the signers were saying we will risk it all to create this new country. This worked out pretty well for them as many of their images currently appear on our money. It obviously worked out well for the rest of us almost 250 years later. These guys had real courage. Many were wealthy, but signed this document anyway knowing that if their revolution failed, they might well be hanged.
The link above is to my blog of March 18-19 that tells the tale of the email I received unannounced with an attached document delineating the alleged misdeeds of Dr. Sharma and several of her cohorts. It includes a 72-page report on this supposed mischief and its detrimental effects on more than a few faculty and staff. The leadership of Anderson is fully aware of all of this and has chosen to do nothing about it. All of this is not new.
I have been in communication with the person who emailed the document to me anonymously. I know nothing about him or her. I have asked for that person or anyone in the group that authored the report to talk to me. I want to get the whole story out. Apparently, there is far more than is in the report. I have written countless times in emails that there is no need to reveal names or sources of any kind. Just tell me how this report came to be and what you hope its release and wide circulation will accomplish. I have asked the emailer “what do you want to have happen?”
The emailer has, thus far, conveyed to me that no one from the group authoring the report is willing to talk to me, even if I will use no names in resultant blogs. How the heck do these people think anyone will follow their lead or demand changes when they themselves will not step up and be counted?
They are intimated, the anonymous emailer tells me. Well, no kidding! The parade to the exits among the “unprofessional” faculty has been lengthy. However, if you are not ready to give up anything for a cause greater than yourself, the integrity of MD Anderson and the well-being of your colleagues, stop complaining.
Is it risky to speak up? Of course, it is. Let me remind these report writers that I started this blog when Dr. DePinho was still president and I was still on faculty, albeit tenured. That wouldn’t matter anymore as the president can dismiss anyone he wishes.
Dr. DePinho called me into his office along with leadership of the Faculty Senate and accused me of leaking information to the press (the Cancer Letter, he said). It was untrue. I looked him in the eye and told him so.
I was fired from a job at Legacy Community Health because I insisted that the well-being of patients came before the well-being of the clinic’s finances. I went to the board about it, a board on which I used to sit before becoming a staff member. The CEO couldn’t tolerate that. I was gone. No regrets. The care there then was sub-optimal. I knew that it was because I had made myself a patient and was cared for poorly. I also had some pretty good docs working for me who were constantly coming to me with concerns about rushed clinic visits and I believed them. Those above me did not care.
Poor patient care? Not on my watch as I was the acting Chief Medical Officer of Legacy at the time. The CMO who I came to work with quit within weeks of me getting there. Then I took his place and found out why he left.
I was recently fired from the board of the San Jose Clinic because there were alleged shenanigans going on within the board and two CEOs in a row over two or so years were forced to leave. I brought my concerns to the attention of the Catholic Archdiocese that runs the clinic. I raised these issues together with another board member. The powers that be didn’t want to deal with that either. Easier to fire me, so they did.
I get it. It takes a bit of courage to face powerful interests protecting wrongdoers. In my case these were the MD Anderson president, the largest federally-qualified health clinic in Houston, and the Catholic Church. No matter. One of the things I was taught at Duke Medical School is “we don’t make cookies. We make cookie cutters.” Has this gotten me in trouble a lot? It has. Do I regret going up against powerful people doing bad things? I do not.
Neither should the report writers if they really believe in what they are doing.
The way to deal with a bully, whether it be DePinho, Pisters, or Trump is to, one way or the other, punch him in the nose—figuratively, not actually, of course. These people will push and push and push until someone pushes back. They accept no guardrails until some are put in place. Chancellor McRaven did that to DePinho. I do not see Chancellor Zerwas doing the same to Pisters, but he should.
I suggest this cohort of report writers ask for an audience with the Chancellor if they cannot get one with Pisters. They need to delineate exactly what it is they want to have happen. Is it to suggest that Dr. Pisters offer Drs. Allison and Sharma an early retirement. Now! I do not know.
A Noble Prize does not come with the privilege of treating people badly and no one has accused Dr. Allison of any wrongdoing as far as I know. But surely his prize doesn’t allow bad behavior on the part of his wife. Haven’t we dealt with this before with Lynda Chin?
There needs to be a full and complete outside investigation done by professionals in the areas outlined in the report. These investigators must have no affiliation with MD Anderson or UT. If what is written in the report, and it is very well documented, is found to be solid, then I suggest, regardless of the sovereign immunity granted to Dr. Sharma by a court, Dr. Pisters assert his power and fix this. Frankly, he should have done it years ago.
Then, this same investigating group needs to work its way through the list of people in the report who allegedly acted without integrity or concern for their colleagues and take additional action. And if, as is also alleged, by the email writer, there are many additional incidents of misconduct and abuse, step up and list them.
MD Anderson needs to be cleaned up after 25 years of leadership turning a blind eye to integrity being undermined and to the resultant price the faculty has had to pay. The emailer suggests in his/her communication with me that this awful behavior is rampant at Anderson. If it is, it needs attention and correction. If people who misbehaved lose their jobs, too bad. If that includes Dr. Pisters, good-bye.
But I still believe that if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything. Our whole country has been fooled. Perhaps the Board of Regents has been fooled, too. This report, if it holds up, should provide the needed clarity to begin the process of MD Anderson getting back to its mission of eradicating cancer and away from being a harbor for people who do not share that mission or a collegial approach to academic medicine.
That could happen. First, the report writers need to articulate what they want to happen next.
