Friday, November 28, 2003
“Vot iss ze effidence?”
My early days at the University of Chicago coincided with the waning years of Anton J. Carlson, who had within living memory been its renowned Professor and Chairman of Physiology. Known by his friends as Ajax, this Swedish immigrant who never quite mastered spoken English was said to have commonly responded to scientific claims made by his students with the question “Vot iss ze effidence?”
I was reminded of that the other day while watching a PBS documentary. One of the individuals being featured was reported as having been diagnosed with leukemia. He was being treated at the Sloan-Kettering hospital in New York, referred to in passing as “one of the best cancer hospitals in the country.”
I immediately asked myself how the film narrator could possibly know that. How could anyone be certain that less-renowned cancer treatment centers in places like Hoboken and Omaha weren’t getting better results with leukemia than the people at Sloan-Kettering? I thought I heard the ghost of Ajax Carlson ask: “Vot iss ze effidence?”
It is not a frivolous question. For one thing, in this day of electronic communication, all of the information about leukemia that is available to Sloan-Kettering is also available everywhere else. In addition, it is generally believed that cancer care benefits from close cooperation among oncologists, radiologists, surgeons and other cancer-related specialties – something that can be difficult to achieve at famous hospitals, which tend to attract big names with correspondingly big egos.
The truth is that in the absence of outcomes data we don’t know that Sloan-Kettering is one of the best cancer hospitals in the country.
But the right information would give us a pretty good idea. And we ought to get it.
My early days at the University of Chicago coincided with the waning years of Anton J. Carlson, who had within living memory been its renowned Professor and Chairman of Physiology. Known by his friends as Ajax, this Swedish immigrant who never quite mastered spoken English was said to have commonly responded to scientific claims made by his students with the question “Vot iss ze effidence?”
I was reminded of that the other day while watching a PBS documentary. One of the individuals being featured was reported as having been diagnosed with leukemia. He was being treated at the Sloan-Kettering hospital in New York, referred to in passing as “one of the best cancer hospitals in the country.”
I immediately asked myself how the film narrator could possibly know that. How could anyone be certain that less-renowned cancer treatment centers in places like Hoboken and Omaha weren’t getting better results with leukemia than the people at Sloan-Kettering? I thought I heard the ghost of Ajax Carlson ask: “Vot iss ze effidence?”
It is not a frivolous question. For one thing, in this day of electronic communication, all of the information about leukemia that is available to Sloan-Kettering is also available everywhere else. In addition, it is generally believed that cancer care benefits from close cooperation among oncologists, radiologists, surgeons and other cancer-related specialties – something that can be difficult to achieve at famous hospitals, which tend to attract big names with correspondingly big egos.
The truth is that in the absence of outcomes data we don’t know that Sloan-Kettering is one of the best cancer hospitals in the country.
But the right information would give us a pretty good idea. And we ought to get it.
