"It's Mine! Do You Hear Me? All Mine!"

Two consulting groups hired by Ohio State have issued reports stating that a major expansion of the OSU Comprehensive Cancer Center (called "The James") may be delayed by "infighting" between leaders of the cancer hospital and the main medical center.

Uncertainty over the project's direction -- including debates between officials of the university's medical center and its cancer hospital -- probably will delay the project past its target completion date of 2011, a top school official said yesterday.

Experts hired to examine the plans for the medical center also said the infighting could hurt both medical programs, keeping top doctors and scientists away.

This development may be just a happenstance, but I too have found it difficult to get oncologists from different groups to work together, whether as business partners or even just to write guidelines for care.

Deloitte & Touche said "sufficient dissent and concern exists," and recommended that the groups work to build "the necessary alignment in order to proceed effectively."

I realize that the Ohio State story is a dispute between the oncologists and the medical center high-muck-a-mucks, but I believe there is something to the theory that some oncologists are territorial, egocentric, paranoid, envious, pretentious, dissembling or all of the above (present company excluded, of course).

It certainly makes it hard to join hands and face the challenges of delivering modern cancer care, with all its hope for success, when turf battles occur. The good news is that it all works out in the end, especially when unhappy doctors decide to move to another city, another op'nin, another show.

Another job that you hope will last
Will make your future forget your past
Another pain where the ulcers grow
Another op'nin of another show