HOUSTON — Ronald DePinho, the president of the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, part of the University of Texas, becomes animated when he talks about his ambitious plans in leading the institute's efforts to combat the disease.
In two weeks, Dr. DePinho plans to give a public report on the first year's progress of M. D. Anderson's "moon shots" program. An ambitious cross-disciplinary effort fashioned after the Kennedy-era space efforts, its aim is to make a drastic reduction in mortality rates for a group of cancers — breast, ovarian, lung and prostate cancer, melanoma and multiple types of leukemia.
But the tenure of Dr. DePinho, who has been president since 2011 and is the fourth in the institution's 72-year history, has been marked by distractions and growing unease as much as by lofty aspirations. Most recently, a survey of clinical faculty members found that a majority of respondents believed the program's demands were having an impact on patient care and on M. D. Anderson's clinical reputation.
With pressure mounting from University of Texas System leaders, Dr. DePinho, acknowledged that his hard-charging style might have resulted in some missteps. He said he had learned from his experiences and was making changes.
"I have stumbled," Dr. DePinho said Monday during an interview at his office. "It comes from running really fast."
Born and raised in New York, Dr. DePinho moved to Houston after 14 years in Massachusetts at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. His wife, Lynda Chin, a cancer genomics researcher, came with him, as did most of the employees of his Boston lab, to help establish the new Institute for Applied Cancer Science.
He soon encountered financial pressures.
"The reality is that all academic institutions are going to have to find ways to increase the quality of care and the numbers of patients they see, and do so with less support," Dr. DePinho said, citing the advent of the Affordable Care Act and the erosion of federal research financing, among other factors.
But the demands of such ambitious efforts and financing challenges are taking a toll. In 2012, clinical departments were asked to increase revenue targets by 5 percent to 10 percent. This year, austerity measures, including salary freezes, were announced.
A clinical faculty survey conducted in September indicated that deep concerns were taking root. Of nearly 550 clinical faculty members who participated — of about 850 total — a majority indicated that they had at least considered other job opportunities. More than 56 percent of respondents agreed that demands for increased clinical productivity had had an impact on patient safety.
Dr. DePinho said he took such concerns seriously.
"If there is any veracity to those claims, we want to find out and we want to open up the lines of communication," he said, adding that the survey had sparked "healthy dialogue where people are now focused on good discussion, trying to come together and think about what the solutions might be."
The survey, the latest in a series suggesting declining morale, was presented during a faculty senate meeting last month that was attended by the University of Texas System chancellor, Francisco Cigarroa.
Members of the executive committee of M. D. Anderson's faculty senate declined to comment further on the matter this week.
In a statement, Dr. Cigarroa described his discussions with faculty members as "very productive."
"We identified several areas that we felt needed immediate attention as it related to better communication, compensation, reviewing how funding mechanisms are currently used to support clinical operations and research, involving faculty in decision-making and planning, and a better balance of near-term needs and long-term goals," Dr. Cigarroa said.
He added that he was working with M. D. Anderson leaders to address faculty concerns and believed they could forge "a constructive and successful path forward."
Along with malaise among the faculty, the last two years have brought some controversy.
In 2012, questions were raised when the Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas bypassed the standard approval process in issuing a $20 million grant to a project partly directed by Dr. Chin at the Institute for Applied Cancer Science. CPRIT, the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, was the subject of legislative hearings and an administrative overhaul. A U.T. System review found no conflicts of interest related to the grant.
Given recent budget constraints, a nearly $550,000 price tag for office renovations approved as part of the effort to attract Dr. DePinho and Dr. Chin also caused heartburn among some faculty members.
Dr. DePinho's ties to Aveo Pharmaceuticals, a Cambridge, Mass. company he founded with Dr. Chin, have also been scrutinized. In 2012, he appeared on CNBC in his capacity as president and praised a renal cancer drug developed by the company. He later apologized for doing so. Although there had been internal discussions about troubling test results within the company, Dr. DePinho has said he was not aware of them at the time.
At the end of last year, Dr. DePinho resigned from the Aveo board and from two other companies with which he had retained ties. He also put his investments into a blind trust.
But Aveo has continued to create headaches. The Food and Drug Administration rejected the renal cancer drug in June. Less than a month later, the Securities and Exchange Commission began an investigation into the company.
According to an S.E.C. filing, the company has been informed that the action "should not be construed as an indication that any violations of law have occurred or that the S.E.C. has any negative opinion of any person, entity or security."
Dr. DePinho said those episodes had been instructive. "I think they've been really good lessons that one has to be a lot more proactive in managing the information so that perceptions don't build," he said.
He said he intended to adopt a more inclusive approach to planning and to step up the dissemination of information to encourage data-driven decision-making. "We have an extraordinary faculty and a phenomenal staff" with shared motivations, he said.
"The thing we all agree on is that we hate cancer," he said. "And we agree that patients come first."
rhamilton@texastribune.org
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