This medical center in Texas seems to be providing a great level of service. I am wondering why patients need to attend directly to get this level of care. I thought that medical findings were published in journals and shared among professionals in the field.
If M.D. Anderson has a dozen (or a hundred) doctors that are experienced in the treatment of certain diseases, why aren't they sending half of those doctors out to other parts of the world to spread that knowledge?
1. Some knowledge is shared in journals; most knowledge isn't published until years after it's established. Much is never published, and is learned through word of math, and institutionally encoded. MD Anderson is world-renowned for being a center for excellence in cancer care.
2. Doctors don't read every article published in every journal related to their work. Even if they did, or read much of it, synthesizing into practice is a very different (and difficult) matter. Many of them don't read at all.
3. Why would MDs want to be send worldwide? And why would MD Anderson want to send them all over? Who pays for this? How can a doctor affect change in a large hospital system?
That said, all of the hospitals mentioned here are doing amazing things every day, and finding the best place for treatment really does come down to the specifics of each case.
Also, my mother was a patient there. She started treatment just a couple of months after I got my job actually. She's still doing well years later, and is glad she waited an extra month to get into M.D Anderson. The decision to wait was excruciating though.