Resource Packages

Canadian Fiscal Policy – Issues and Options Canadian Defence Policy – Issues and Options Accountability of Canada’s Governing Institutions – Issues and Options University of Guelph-Humber Course: Ethics & Values in Business (BADM2050), Winter 2004 Semester

Week 8: Marketplace of Values: Ethical Issues in the Workplace
Lecture Tuesday, February 24, 2004

Goodbye Canada?, Paul Kemp (Breakout Educational Network - Dundurn Press, 2003) pp. 28-30

PAUL:
M.D. Anderson (in Houston) was a huge organization with 8,000 employees in all areas of research, patient care, the medical professions, nursing, and support staff. When I looked at all those resources and all that expertise concentrating on cancer, it was clear that M.D. Anderson had an advantage in terms of what can be done to conquer the disease. To put it in perspective, the research budget for the M.D. Anderson hospital area in Houston was greater than the total Medical Research Council of Canada budget and the National Cancer Institute’s budget for all of Canada combined.

When I met a 30-year old francophone cancer specialist from Montreal, this point was driven home. Dr. Michele Donato advised that if I really wanted to understand the attraction of M.D. Anderson, I should just spend a few days with her on the bone-marrow cancer wards. I did. Her story was illuminating.

> DR. MICHELE DONATO, cancer specialist

When I was training as a medical resident at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal, I did some bone marrow transplants and was encouraged to try to learn more and become a bone marrow transplant specialist. There were a few centres in the U.S., like M.D. Anderson in Houston, doing a whole lot more, so I came down and interviewed. The place was incredible. I decided I would train as a transplanter, get the experience and then go back home. Then they asked me to stay and work for them and I had to stay, you know. The job was just too good. At the Royal Victoria Hospital, we were probably doing about 20 bone marrow transplants a year. Here, at M.D. Anderson, we do over 500. The difference is enormous and the experience that I have gained here would have taken years, if not decades at home.

At M.D.Anderson, I am a full-time bone marrow transplanter, sub-specializing in ovarian cancer and in breast cancer. Back home, I would have been able to do general oncology and some bone marrow transplants, but I could not focus on one unique area and do research on that alone. Here, essentially they let me do what I want. If I had a good idea and a plan, and if I could put it together and build up research, that was fine with them. In Montreal, my purpose would be to fill a broader need as a general oncologist. Work-wise that is the main difference.

At 30 years old, I am younger than most of my colleagues. The advantage of having been here is that, at age 30, I have seen hundreds of bone marrow transplants already, whereas at home I would probably have to be much older to have the amount of experience that I've gained here.

The opportunity I get from M.D. Anderson is really the opportunity to do the research that I want to do. That is something I was not getting when I went home to interview. They needed somebody to work in general oncology in the clinic and they needed somebody in the lab. I am not a lab person, I do not like the lab. I am good at what I do, and my colleagues at M.D. Anderson said, "Well that's what you want to do and it sounds great. This is a new idea, it's a new project, we're not doing that, go for it." So that is what M.D. Anderson gave me and that is how our new ovarian cancer transplant program came about. We put the program together and it is going fabulously well. Patients are doing very well. If I have an idea they will actually push me to develop my idea, not something they want me to work on. I think that is how we are going to make progress.

M.D. Anderson is a state institution, not private practice. I am salaried, and essentially I make the same money that I would be making at home as an attending physician at a big university hospital. The cost of living down here is overall about the same. The opportunity, though, is great.

I like Montreal, I like the city, I like my friends, and it was difficult to leave. I understand that the Canadian taxpayer would feel that my education was subsidized and that I am not paying back by moving down here. I guess they do have a point, however I hope that the research I am doing will benefit everybody. We have already published last year, we are publishing this year again, and that is available to everybody. I am doing something here that I cannot do at home. The new therapies we develop here will benefit cancer patients everywhere, Canada and around the world. I hope I am paying back by that, a little bit.

“It is not the easier life that you search for but living life at the edge of all your possibilities.” For now I think that is true, I hope so.

Resources for Teachers & Students - Main | top of page