Returning to Houston for a town hall meeting at MD Anderson on Sept. 27, Peter Pisters, the institution’s freshly-appointed president, hit every note a guy in his position needed to hit: baseball, football, shared values, shared governance, book clubs, reminiscences on growing up nerdy in Canada, the story of how he met his wife, anecdotes from taking care of MD Anderson patients during Hurricane Rita.
How’s this for a paradox: The better cancer centers become at keeping patients alive, the more expensive cancer care becomes. This brutal tradeoff hits harder in rural areas, where the cancer burden is higher and the investigator and clinical trial representation is lower.
