Memorial Sloan Kettering also announced late last week that it would limit the involvement of its board members in start-ups affiliated with the hospital, a development that followed news of an exclusive deal the hospital made with an artificial intelligence company founded by Memorial Sloan Kettering insiders.
On Monday, Representative Debbie Dingell, Democrat of Michigan, sent a letter to Dr. Thompson seeking answers to a series of questions about the deal with the company, Paige.AI, giving it the right to access images of 25 million tissue slides analyzed over decades. Her letter questioned how the hospital planned to ensure patient privacy, among other issues, many of which had been raised by hospital doctors at the internal meetings once the deal became public.
Also on Monday, The New England Journal of Medicine published a correction on two of Dr. Baselga’s articles. The correction lists Dr. Baselga’s relationships with 15 companies. An editor’s note appended to the correction states: “Dr. Baselga failed to disclose in these articles his multiple, substantial financial associations, which are now apparent in the updated disclosure forms. When we learned of this breach of trust, we conveyed our concern to Dr. Baselga’s institution, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.”
In his own comments to the staff, Dr. Thompson apologized for what he described as his poor handling of the recent crisis and said Dr. Baselga had not acted appropriately.
“José reported to me, and I wish I had done more to keep him away from the line,” Dr. Thompson said, according to the partial transcript of Monday’s meeting. “While Dr. Baselga has acknowledged his mistakes and resigned, this has not brought closure to M.S.K. It has led to discussions of whether we still know where the right side of the line is.”
Mr. Warner, a former chairman of JPMorgan Chase & Company, acknowledged that there was “widespread anger” among staff members and that the hospital’s reputation had been harmed.
“The question that you’re asking quite properly is: Where the hell was management and the board in all of this? You should have protected this institution,” Mr. Warner said. “The fact that you’re angry is all about the passion that you feel for this place, that love that you have for this place, that commitment that you have to this place, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
