From staff reports

Dr. Charles A. LeMaistre

Dr. Charles A. “Mickey” LeMaistre, a former UT Southwestern Medical School Associate Dean and Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs whose pursuit of cancer prevention resulted in one of the most influential papers on lung cancer, died on Jan. 28. He was 92.

Dr. LeMaistre, a UT Southwestern Medical Center faculty member from 1959 to 1971, later served as Chancellor of the UT System for seven years before being selected as President of UT M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, a post he held for 18 years (1978-1996).

“Mickey LeMaistre helped change the way the world thinks about, and deals with, the scourge of cancer,” UT System Chancellor William H. McRaven shared on his official blog. “Today we take it as a given that there are things we can do – or abstain from doing – to reduce our chances of getting cancer. That was not the case in the 1970s – even at M.D. Anderson. Mickey LeMaistre made prevention part of the cancer center’s mission. He was particularly focused on the link between smoking and cancer.”

Dr. LeMaistre’s UT Southwestern career included being selected to a 10-member advisory committee formed by the surgeon general and charged with investigating smoking and health. That effort led to the landmark 1964 report indicting tobacco as a cause of lung cancer, giving him national stature.

As Dr. LeMaistre's list of accomplishments grew, so did his reputation, and as a result, his administrative responsibilities. The Alabama native was hesitant about leaving his medical duties to follow an administrative path but, with some convincing, in 1971 he became the first physician to serve as Chancellor of the UT System.

While at M.D. Anderson, Dr. LeMaistre developed a cancer prevention division that focused on epidemiology, behavioral sciences, and working with patients who had a family history of cancer. He also played a major role in expanding M.D. Anderson beyond Houston, bringing it to the community rather than requiring patients to come to the cancer center. M.D. Anderson today operates a network of regional care centers and affiliate cancer hospitals, and has collaborative relationships with institutions worldwide.

“His leadership cemented the institution’s status as a world leader in cancer research and care,” Chancellor McRaven observed. “He recruited hundreds of brilliant scientists and clinicians. Realizing that many patients in need were unable to make it to Houston for treatment, he expanded M.D. Anderson’s geographic reach.”

One of the seminal elements of his UT Southwestern career was the surgeon general’s national committee. In 1962, recently appointed Surgeon General Luther L. Terry announced that he was forming a committee of experts to conduct a comprehensive review of the scientific literature on the smoking question. Representatives of the four voluntary medical organizations who had first proposed the commission, as well as the FDA, the Federal Trade Commission, the American Medical Association, and the Tobacco Institute (the lobbying arm of the tobacco industry) made nominations. Ten members were finally chosen, representing a swath of disciplines in medicine, pharmacology, statistics, and surgery. After reviewing several thousand papers and findings, the committee’s 1964 report was far-reaching.

“The overall conclusion from the report was that cigarette smoking is a health hazard to warrant appropriate remedial action,” Don Shopland, who worked as a staff member for the committee during the project at the National Library of Medicine, observed in 2015 to Modern Healthcare magazine. “I think it was Mickey's idea to suggest the word ‘remedial.’ A lot of people know that phrase; it was plastered around the media for weeks on end.”

The report’s long-term effects were profound. Per capita cigarette consumption in 1963 was the highest level ever reached in America, but since 1964 there has been a decline in per capita cigarette consumption almost every year.

Mickey LeMaistre was born in 1924 and had secured a senatorial appointment to the Naval Academy before an eye injury suffered a week before he was to leave home made him ineligible. Instead, he graduated from the University of Alabama and earned his medical degree from Weill Cornell Medical College. Dr. LeMaistre trained at New York Hospital and Cornell University before accepting a faculty position in 1954 at Emory University, where he continued working in infectious diseases and developed a particular interest in prevention. In his five years in Atlanta, he helped set up a department of preventive medicine at Emory and served as its first chairman before being recruited to UT Southwestern.

Dr. LeMaistre’s honors include 2015 induction into the Healthcare Hall of Fame, the Distinguished Service Award from the American Medical Association, and the American Cancer Society’s Medal of Honor. He was named Chancellor Emeritus of the UT System in 2014.