TMC PULSE

13 t m c » p u l s e | f e b r u a r y 2 0 1 9 Q | What's the latest on XyloCor? A | In a couple of months, we will be treating patients with end-stage coronary disease. Q | Is the clinical trial for patients to grow their own bypasses ready to go? A | Yes. We are finalizing approvals. We have FDA approval. We have independent review board approval. We are hoping to do our first patient here at Baylor St. Luke's before the summer. Q | You lead hundreds of people at Baylor. How do you approach running one of the nation's largest surgery departments? A | We have 150 faculty, 130 trainees and staff. What I love about being the chairman of the department with so many wonderful people is that everyone becomes a force multiplier. To help everyone become successful really brings me joy. I give out the book Team of Teams by General Stanley McChrystal all the time. I love what he said: He is an enabler. He is there to make it possible for everyone else to do what is within their ability as a servant-leader. It's the first book I underlined in 30 years. He talks about empow- ering people, disseminating information, giving everyone a voice and giving people the ability to get done what they want to get done. What I love about the TMC—and it's the first thing I talk about when we are trying to recruit someone— is that everyone supports each other here. If Jim Allison wins the Nobel Prize at MD Anderson, I am proud of that. That's rare. You don't see that in New York and Chicago. It's a zero-sum game in many places, unfortunately. Q | Was there any moment that crystallized your view of Houston? A | I had not experienced anything like Hurricane Harvey. I did not fully appreciate what happens. When I heard over that weekend that the department and everyone else had already established 'go' teams, I said: 'What?' People took it upon themselves to say: 'I am here for the duration.' They did it without being asked and they did it without being expected to be thanked or recognized, which is amazing to me. In the next thought, I said: 'Well, of course. That's what this place is all about.' That's what you have to love about Houston and the Texas Medical Center. We've recruited 120 faculty and that sense of collaboration and collegiality comes through. Q | November marked six years since you arrived in Houston. You're an empty nester. What do you do for fun or outside of your various professional pursuits? A | My son, Eric, is 25. He is in New York—in real estate. Michael is 27 and he's a clerk for a fed- eral district court judge in Tampa, Florida. It's a tremendously rich time with my wife, Debbie. We golf together. We have two dogs that we love and that we walk. Truly, my comfort zone is work, but we travel and see friends and family. Q | You turned 59 in January and have a trim physique. What is your personal health regimen? A | I was never a big believer in training until I started doing it. Now I realize: How could you not? I do an hour in the gym two or three times a week and eat well. My dad died of a heart attack, so I am careful on that. One of my other hats is that I am president of the Society of Surgical Chairs. We have a major national initiative to ensure the well-being of physicians as we get older in terms of our cognitive function. We are actually going to try to launch a national campaign to teach physi- cians how to take care of our cognitive aging. The physician workforce is growing older and there is a shortage of physicians. We want to make sure we train those physicians in their cognitive health when they are 50 or 60 so that they can continue to contribute. I also play backgammon to take care of my mind. Q | What's on the medical horizon that excites you? A | I think we are at an inflection point on how we take care of each other and how we take care of our patients. Between artificial intelligence and genetic engineering, I think we are going to live decades longer. I think we are going to live healthier. I think we're going to look back on how we take care of patients in 10 years and say: 'What were we thinking?' It's just very primitive. I think artificial intelligence will play a major role in diag- nosis and picking treatments. We now have com- puters that can give us an early warning of sepsis that is completely changing the mortality risk of critically ill patients. That is very simple and yet it's been a game changer. I think in the next five years we will expand that to 80 or 90 percent of diagnoses and treatment. It's both scary and wonderful, which means the role of the physician is going to change dramatically. It is impossible for physicians now to really keep up with all the guidelines in evidence-based medicine and the computers are going to do that. But, just like the pilot monitoring autopilot's takeoff and landing, we're going to be there to make sure that it all fits and that our patients, as human beings, are comforted and supported and helped in the decision-making—which a computer is never going to be able to do. Todd Rosengart, M.D., was interviewed by Pulse assistant editor Cindy George. The interview has been edited for clarity and length. Believe in what you're doing; have a little bit of temerity to go beyond where you should be and persevere to do it. If you feel like you're doing the right thing and you've done your homework, don't be shy about persever- ing on it.

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