Rod Watson: Respecting all its talent could reverse Roswell Park’s slide in ranking

Leecia Eve, right, chair of Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center’s board of directors, and Crystal Rodriguez-Dabney, the hospital’s chief diversity officer, vow an increased focus on accountability when it comes to diversity and inclusion.

Leecia Eve, center, the chair of Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center’s Board of Directors, speaks Thursday to The Buffalo News’ editorial board. She is addressing the hospital’s hiring of Crystal Rodriguez-Dabney, left, as senior vice president and chief diversity officer.

Laurel DiBrog, senior vice president and chief marketing and communication officer, is on the right.

The two front-page stories, just days apart earlier this month, seemed unrelated.

But were they?

The first described Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center’s poor showing in the latest U.S. News & World Report ranking of the country’s top cancer hospitals.

Once a mainstay in the top 50 – and in the top 20 as recently as 2020 – the hospital Buffalo considered one of its crown jewels had a cumulative score that would place it 95th in the nation, well below bragging territory.

The other story, just two days later, detailed a consultant’s report that found “significant and pervasive” issues at Roswell Park when it comes to diversity and claims of discrimination. The problems include “an apparently historical, under-prioritization of diversity and inclusion matters.”

In other words, the hospital placed little value on creating an atmosphere in which women and employees of color could thrive, had little concern about the unnecessary barriers placed before them, and gave little thought to the value they could add to the facility and its patients if treated fairly.

Put the two stories together, and it takes me back again to an episode of Ken Burns’ “Baseball” documentary that discussed the so-called “golden age” in which the sport was the best it could be thanks to stars like Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb and Lou Gehrig. But one expert quickly shot down that notion by pointing out the sport could not have been at its best because, in excluding Negro Leagues stars like Josh Gibson and Satchel Paige, it hadn’t tapped all of the talent America had to offer.

The same applies at Roswell Park. Though such overt racial barriers no longer exist, the references to the hospital’s Black employees as animals and Black physicians’ complaints of being marginalized or undermined reflect a culture in which the few who are let in the door have little chance to contribute all that they have to offer. And with only nine physicians identifying as Black or Hispanic out of Roswell Park’s 200 doctors, the hospital lacks the critical mass that could make it easier to change such a corrosive culture.

The hospital’s defense is that, when it comes to diversity, its numbers align with those of cancer centers nationally.

But rather than falling back on that as an excuse, Roswell Park could see it as an opportunity. If the Buffalo facility developed a reputation as a place that welcomes, nurtures and listens to its doctors and other professionals of color, it could gain a competitive advantage in attracting the relative few professionals of color who do specialize in oncology.

Instead, with this report and at least $4.67 million paid out recently to settle discrimination lawsuits, any prospective employee of color or female employee who researches the facility will have to think twice about coming here to work.

Combined with the area’s long-standing ranking as among the nation’s most segregated, and last year’s racist supermarket massacre – committed by a white supremacist who drove here precisely to target Black people – this latest news does little to enhance the area’s reputation as a place that puts a premium on diversity and other progressive values.

Instead, it paints Buffalo as the place where “woke” goes to die when it can’t get a room in Florida.

The devastating report was finally publicly released a year and half after its completion and three months after Roswell Park’s former board chairman resigned the position after his own development company was named in a racial discrimination lawsuit. The suit claimed the company used code words to identify areas with large Black populations and avoided building in those areas.

The company has denied the allegations, and the suit does not claim Roswell Park’s former chairman was aware of the alleged practice. Still, such allegations do not inspire confidence that a board under his direction would lead the charge to diversify the hospital’s workforce or ensure equitable treatment.

Perhaps that will happen under new Chairwoman Leecia Eve, daughter of the retired longtime deputy Assembly speaker who passed down the passion for racial justice that marked his entire career.

One of the board’s first significant acts under Eve was to release the report it had kept hidden. Roswell Park also this spring filled the newly created position of chief diversity officer, hiring Crystal Rodriguez-Dabney, who also will serve as a vice president. She and Eve have vowed that there will be a greater focus on diversity as well as transparency and accountability.

Changing an institution’s culture is never easy. But if Roswell Park is serious about regaining its ranking among the nation’s top cancer facilities, it needs to start by tapping – not alienating – all of the talent within its ranks.

That means creating a welcoming work environment and valuing the experiences and expertise that workers of color bring to the table. But they can only bring that to the table if they are given a seat, not treated as second-class citizens in a low-ranked facility that needs all of the help it can get.

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