Tom Purcell, MD, started his career in business consulting, and it was not until he was 28 that he first entered medical school.
He wanted to work on life-threatening diseases and connect with patients as they healed. And after his years working for Accenture/Andersen Consulting, he quickly found himself taking on leadership roles within medicine.
"I enjoy building programs and I enjoy galvanizing people toward a goal," Dr. Purcell told Becker's.
He has served as chief medical officer at Seattle-based Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center for more than two years now. Here, he discusses how he is meeting the challenges of modern cancer care:
Editor's note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
The technology he is most excited about: Precision medicine or precision oncology — the understanding of cancer genetics, the drivers of cancer and the technologies around addressing the root cause of the cancer. I'm very fortunate to be an oncologist at a time when there are so many options for this. Being a part of that, seeing that from the ground up in my career, and then knowing the future is targeting that type of treatment is really exciting.
The thing that keeps him up at night: One is that we know that with the aging population, the incidence of new cancer cases is rising, so having the facilities and the personnel to be able to take care of patients in the best way possible is what keeps me up at night. The demand is unprecedented. The other is the rising cost of treatment and how we are going to make sure we’re delivering equitable cancer care with the increasing demand. It's a supply-demand situation from a personnel and facility standpoint, on top of the spiraling costs, declining reimbursement and things like that. I know we will maintain the standard of care, but we've got to be innovative and we've got to continue to look at things in perhaps different ways in order to achieve that.
How he is leveraging resources to better outcomes: There are many aspects of cancer care that patients have to deal with in post-treatment situations, whether it's long-term side effects or mental health. Rethinking survivorship care within clinics where teams see patients from a survivorship perspective can reduce the need to see the primary oncology provider. Providers and patients still bump into each other in the hallways and they want to see each other. We're trying to come up with ways to maintain the relationship and connection without overworking providers in the midst of unprecedented demands. We're creating environments where patients feel comfortable and there's an infrastructure in place to give the best care necessary, but in a way that’s less intensive for the providers that are delivering the care.
The thing he is most proud of: Fred Hutch patient satisfaction is at an all-time high, and that's in spite of COVID and unprecedented demand. We're in the top 10% of patient satisfaction in Vizient. It all comes down to taking care of patients, ensuring they get the care they need and the outcomes they're looking for. It is a day-in-day-out pursuit, and I'm very proud of that.
His best leadership advice: Listen first. Get out of your office to round and connect with people where they are. I learn more about what's going well and learn about opportunities to improve by connecting on rounds with the physicians, nurses and staff. Being out on the front lines and seeing what the real problems are helps me to remove barriers or partner with people to correct issues.