comparing leukemia faculty at mskcc vs mdacc vs farber

[JLC]

Was breezing through leukemia faculty web page for md anderson and mskcc to identify mentors who I could work with:

http://www.mdanderson.org/patient-a...nics/care-centers/leukemia/doctors/index.html

http://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/adult/leukemias/leukemia-expert

And I realized one sharp difference. Although I only clicked on the first 15 faculty on both sites, almost all of the mdacc faculty came from foreign med schools, foreign residencies (or lower ranked US residencies), and foreign fellowships(or lower ranked US fellowships, with few exception where they did fellowship at Md Anderson). On the other hand, MSKCC faculty with only 1 or 2 exception came from top US med schools, top US residencies, and top US fellowships. I'm actually quite surprised by how drastically different the faculty training are and found MSKCC and Dana Farber faculty to be more alike in where their faculty trained.

Honestly, I'm not sure exactly why there is such a huge discrepancy between the quality of the faculty. I am far more familiar with the research aspect of the cancer centers as I've done res at other top cancer centers and have always heard that mdacc research strength lies in its size but not quality. I'm wondering if this is the same for mdacc clinical side as well?

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[gutonc]

Because...Texas.

 

[visari]

Are we bashing MDACC now because their leukemia faculty don't come from "top" places?!

Because this takes it to a whole new level

 

[JLC]

Not bashing. In clinical medicine, its very hard to evaluate a person's clinical abilities. In research we look at their publications and grant record. I've found in medicine being an "expert" comes from either two places, your own mouth, or your training record ie med school, residency fellowship. Like many others, I was interested in MSKCC, MDACC, Farber simply because they had reputations of being among the best cancer centers. I was just completely surprised that the faculty at MDACC training records were very underwhelming. I'm not sure how you can become an expert without receiving training at the most rigorous or most advanced environments that are usually at the prestigious places. So I'm interested to hear opinions of why MDACC is so highly regarded compared to other cancer centers.

 

[carrigallen]

I'm not into leukemia but I'd say MDACC is definitely on par, if not superior for certain leukemia research. Hagop Kantarjian is king of leukemia and he is the director at MDACC. I agree the residency background probably has more to do with location desirability. Texas etc.