Cancer institute director steps aside as colleague takes the reins

By Marshall Allen (contact)

Wednesday, June 24, 2009 | 2 a.m.

When Dr. Nicholas Vogelzang arrived at the Nevada Cancer Institute in 2004, the organization was little more than a dream.

Now as he departs — not entirely by his own choice — he calls his role in creating the institute an “enormous milestone” in his career.

Vogelzang, 59, joined the institute from the University of Chicago Cancer Research Center as employee No. 10 of what is now a staff of 318. The site that is now home to the 142,000-square-foot Summerlin facility was nothing more than a patch of dirt.

As director, Vogelzang was responsible for leading the institute’s scientific and clinical staff, recruiting, and ensuring the organization developed an ethic of excellence.

“I think what I brought was a mind-set that emphasized collegiality, that emphasized patient centricity and that emphasized that our mission was to create new knowledge in the laboratory and bedside,” Vogelzang said.

It came as a surprise when the board of directors informed him this year that his role as director would be assumed by the newly hired Dr. John Ruckdeschel, who also took over as CEO.

Vogelzang said the suffering economy — which prompted layoffs at the institute in July and a voluntary salary reduction by senior leadership — accelerated the need for a leader who was adept at the business, fundraising and political aspects of the job.

Ruckdeschel brings “an amazing skill set” and has demonstrated his business savvy in previous positions in Florida and Detroit, Vogelzang said.

Vogelzang was reassigned as head of the institute’s genitourinary cancer section, while national recruiters attempted to lure him away from Las Vegas.

A great local opportunity presented itself, at U.S. Oncology, the national organization that does business locally as Comprehensive Cancer Centers. Vogelzang will continue to see patients — Nevada Cancer Institute patients will follow him or be transferred to other doctors at the institute — and work as a lead researcher for U.S. Oncology, which he said is gaining a reputation for efficiently getting new drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

He considered jobs elsewhere, but Vogelzang concluded it was best to stay in Las Vegas. His son is in high school and his daughter is a freshman at UNLV. (His oldest daughter was killed in a car accident here in June 2006.)

“We have bittersweet memories, but the idea of pulling up and going someplace for my own professional growth just didn’t appeal,” he said.

Ruckdeschel, who started this month, said he wanted to keep Vogelzang, but acknowledged such changes in leadership are a natural part of an organization’s development.

Vogelzang has the entrepreneurial skills that were needed to create the organization from scratch and grow it, he said. Ruckdeschel said his business skills will make the institute sustainable in the long run.

Vogelzang’s departure is a loss, Ruckdeschel said, but it also “clears the decks,” easing any problems that might arise from staff having mixed loyalties.

Vogelzang said he hopes to collaborate with Nevada Cancer Institute in the future.

“I believe this will be good for the city and state,” he said. “We will forge research alliances and, potentially, clinical practice alliances.”

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The University of Nevada School of Medicine’s policies to limit the influence of pharmaceutical companies lag those of its peers nationally, according to a recent survey by the American Medical Student Association.

The pharmaceutical industry is known for plying doctors, residents and medical students with gifts, meals, trips and paid promotional speaking opportunities. The AMSA ranked medical schools according to how much they either allow, ban or require disclosure of such gifts, which the drug companies use as enticement to use their products.

The AMSA studied the conflict of interest policies of each school and issued letter grades.

The University of Nevada School of Medicine received a “D.”

Although it’s clear the institution knows the dangers of conflicts of interest, its policies rely mostly on disclosure, the AMSA said. “This policy would be much stronger if more stringent limits were placed on areas that are known to influence physicians,” the report stated.

Dr. Peggy Dupey, assistant dean of student affairs at the University of Nevada School of Medicine, praised the AMSA’s efforts because it “keeps people accountable.”

But she said the AMSA should have noted that the school is still developing its policies. The school just approved a policy banning gifts from drug companies but has yet to implement it, Dupey said.

The school’s new policy “doesn’t rely as much on disclosure as they make it sound,” she said.