Historical Interviews
 

WARNING! Subscribers who read this story may be at risk of losing one or more misconceptions.

Once in a while the Epi Monitor publishes interviews with epidemiologists involved in areas of epidemiology that not all of our readers are familiar with. For example, we have published interviews with epidemiologists working in academia, the World Health Organization, and in private practice. This month we try to shed light on what it is like to work as an epidemiologist in private industry. We invite you to read on.

Dr. Spivey is a very thoughtful person who obviously gave carefully considered answers to our questions, and we acquired a new perspective in conducting this interview. We trust you will also.

Gary Spivey is qualified to speak on epidemiology because he is the Manager of Epidemiology and Environmental Medicine at UNOCAL (Union Oil Company of California) in Los Angeles and has been in industry for eight years. He is an interesting person to speak to about his experiences because he previously worked for eight years as a faculty member at the UCLA School of Public Health. This gives him a basis for comparing his experience in industry which many readers will appreciate.

This interview was originally slated for publication as a special feature in the “Companies” chapter of EPISOURCE, however, space constraints encouraged us to publish the full text of the interview here and to include a condensed version in the sourcebook. Consider yourself among the select few to be invited to this sneak preview!

Epi Monitor: Why did you leave your academic position at UCLA to take a job with UNOCAL?

Spivey: It really had to do with challenge more than anything else. I must admit at the time, I was not looking for anything else. I was quite happy with the way things were going at UCLA. I had plenty of grant and consulting work and was building up a good program and had no complaints at all with it.

Epi Monitor: Were you in occupational health at UCLA ?

Spivey: No, I was primarily in environmental epidemiology and a few other things. There was one thing that I was unhappy about. I was doing a lot of consulting work, primarily out of interest but also because UCLA salaries, at the time, were pretty much bottom of the barrel. I was supplementing my income with consulting and I worked practically every night and every weekend.

We had only one week of real vacation after eight years at the University. This was getting to be a little much, hard on the family, and I was a little burnt out on it. That was not the biggest factor in my decision, because I was still enjoying myself. The decision to leave really came out of the blue. I had once told this headhunter several years before to let me know if there was ever a good job in industry in Los Angeles.

Epi Monitor: She kept good index cards!

Spivey: I decided to look at the job out of curiosity. What I saw was an opportunity to do something that I had a great deal of interest in, but had not been given a chance to do. Primarily, it was doing health surveillance in an industrial setting which appealed to me.

Epi Monitor: Did this interest stem from your industrial work?

Spivey: Partly, I had bid on a contract with the electrical utility industry to design and set up a health surveillance system. And now I would have more time to work on it than if I stayed at UCLA. The other major part of it was that I had been using surveillance in my environmental epidemiology class for some years at that point, as one way to get to the issues that might affect the general population.

Epi Monitor: So, it was partly because of the opportunity you thought the new job presented?

Spivey: And the challenge of really building my own program which was also a good opportunity. I was hired in as the manager of a program which consisted only of myself!

Epi Monitor: How has it worked out? How is your job the same and how is it different from what you expected?

Spivey: Well, let’s see.

Epi Monitor: Maybe you didn’t walk in with a lot of preconceived notions about how things would work.

Spivey: Well, I had some misconceptions and I certainly had some fears about it. I think I had the typical fear that all academics seem to have, you know, “Gee I'm going to get there and they’re going to be telling me what I can and can't do, what I’m allowed to say and if I find something will tell me to suppress it,” and the like were what I was really concerned about.

Epi Monitor: Well, that is an interesting point to stop on for a moment if you don’t mind. I think that your fear or misconception is still part and parcel of what people feel in academic settings today. In part it may exist in the government setting. Do you feel that this unspoken fear is exaggerated or is there some basis to it? Are there safeguards that you should take in an industrial setting like that, and how would they differ from safeguards someone in government would take?

Spivey: I’m sure there was a real historic basis for that fear. I have no doubt about that, just from the stories that I’ve heard and I’m sure everyone else has also. Particularly the early part of the asbestos story and I think that even when I started at UNOCAL I could see some remnants of that kind of philosophy. However, the climate for industry has changed. Industry with the regulations and the lawsuits is really in the position where it cannot do that anymore. It can’t afford to do it. They may try, or there may be people who would like to try but there are also a lot of people around within the industry from senior managers to attorneys that understand that it is simply not acceptable practice. From an ethical, moral or business stand point, it does not allow for good business. From the business standpoint, manipulating the truth will adversely affect the long-term bottom line. Therefore, they are less likely to hide or suppress information. From what I have found, in the industrial setting we are expected to be above the pressures, we are expected to tell management exactly what is going on or what we think is going on, regardless of how severe it may sound. We do have to be able to defend it; however, I believe that is a major difference between academia and industrial settings. When you go to a manager and say I believe that there is a problem here, and he asks for the evidence, you must be able to talk to him, to explain, and to have something solid enough to show him.

Epi Monitor: I could see how that actually could be a healthy thing. Because if someone has an economic interest in the outcome they are going to be a very interested audience. They are more likely to challenge you than might an academic colleague down the hall. Does that make sense to you?

Spivey: I feel certain that there is some truth to that. You have to be sure that you’ve done everything carefully and that you’ve dotted every “I”, because rest assured that someone else will be going over your work with a great deal of scrutiny.

Epi Monitor: You’ve told us how your job was different in regard to your fears about people hiding your findings and how that fear in particular did not pan out. Is there anything else that you would say was different from the expected?

Spivey: One of the expectations that I went in with and another that I feel is fairly common is that people in the industrial field have time to sit back and read and devote as much time as they need to a given problem, rather than worry about under staffing, under funding, etc. This is another misconception. Industry will put the resources where they need them to the extent that they can, but they, being business people, are not going to over staff or over budget something so that people have plenty of time to work at their leisure. We are chronically behind our schedule and under staffed, just like anyone else. I don’t mean that to say that there is neglect, or that not enough attention is being paid, however, we are afforded few extras.

Epi Monitor: How long have you been there now?

Spivey: I’ve been there for almost eight years.

Epi Monitor: Are you still the only epidemiologist there or do you have additional help?

Spivey: No, the total group is now fifteen.

Epi Monitor: You’re right. You did have a chance to create your own group! What about some of the positive discoveries you have made?

Spivey: Well, I was hoping, not necessarily expecting, to be able to get into a lot of areas (i.e. building a surveillance system and do some traditional epidemiology). I was also looking forward to interacting with a lot of different programs. I have been able to move us, as a group, into a lot of areas. I’m often asked by people in other companies, “What do you do with all those people you have?” They may not have as many or they have as many but they’re a larger company. The only response that I have is that we’re involved in many more projects as a unit, than some of these other companies with units the size of ours. For example, we have a hearing conservation program in which all of the audiograms are sent to us and we determine if there are any abnormalities or not, and then we get the reports back out to the physicians. We then maintain the data base on all of the results, including the frequency of abnormalities. We also maintain the company’s data base of all industrial hygiene monitoring, including noise monitoring.

Epi Monitor: How does your program compare, just in terms of numbers, with the other industry epi units? Are you among the largest?

Spivey: It is just about, but you have to be very careful about making comparisons like that. For instance, we have our own computer system manager, who handles all of the hardware, and a programmer who handles the software applications. Most of the other companies depend on the company’s data processing abilities.

Epi Monitor: Were there other positive things that you were expecting from your new job, and how did they work out?

Spivey: I think one of the things that has been a surprise to me, is the personal satisfaction and feedback that you receive in industry that you do not receive in academia. I think people in academia can relate to presenting a talk or a paper somewhere and you may or may not receive a positive response. Your students may or may not remark that they liked your course; they are more likely to comment on their grade.

Epi Monitor: Is it the management or the employees that show their appreciation more?

Spivey: It may be both. Certainly the management. They are the ones that we interact with most. To the extent that we are out with the employees in one way or another, they are very positive also. They are generally very pleased to know that there is a program going on and that there are people looking out for their health.

Epi Monitor: Do you think that’s the reason that management generally gives you positive feed back?

Spivey: I guess it really is. Even when they are not happy with anything that we find, they still appreciate that we’re there to find it. They recognize that a group like ours is needed to help them comply with all the regulations they are struggling to comply with.

Epi Monitor: In addition to doing research, you are also providing a service by providing the data and information to deal with the regulatory environment. Is that right?

Spivey: That’s correct.

Epi Monitor: One other thing that you mentioned, in speaking of expectations and how they did and didn’t result in what you expected, you said at UCLA you were working very long hours, and had only one week vacation in the many years you were there, how has this job change affected your time, and how hard have you had to work? Has it been less demanding than academia?

Spivey: It really has. I work very hard during the day-time. In some ways I may work harder here than at the University, where you tend to have students dropping in and various faculty meetings that don’t appear very intense, except maybe from an emotional standpoint. So, whereas I put in some very long hours there, I think the intensity of what I do here in fewer hours is greater. I do a lot more traveling now than I did at the University, but when I’m home, I’m really home; I don’t have to bring things home very often.

Epi Monitor: Many people believe that there is more money to be made in industry. What should a person expect to be making in industry as compared to what they might normally make in an academic environment?

Spivey: That’s a real tough thing for me to answer. For a couple of reasons, one being that I have not really surveyed the salary situation for several years now. Secondly,“The silicone breast implant fiasco is a sad case of corporate indifference and regulatory mismanagement.”  

I know that things are changing fairly dramatically now. There has been a real differential in the past. A person could do fifty percent better in industry, than say academia or government in the past. That gap is closing very fast. I’m not sure that it hasn’t been completely closed. A few years ago, I tried to recruit a physician to join my group whom I could not entice away from academia. I found myself not being able to offer as much. I know that the universities have come up a great deal.

Epi Monitor: So to your knowledge, there is no real rule of thumb as to what current positions, outside of the industrial setting, are being paid.

Spivey: No and of course, it does vary from any one company or school to another. I know that I could go to another company and probably make more money, however, I am happy where I am, and I like what I’m doing.

Epi Monitor: Other than the amount of feedback and positive response that you received in industry, were there any other items that were also a surprise to you at the time?

Spivey: I really don’t think so, other than the fact that I have been able to do as many things as I have. Prior to going into the industrial setting I was concerned about being intellectually stimulated, to the degree that an academic setting promotes. However, I have found that this setting provides as much stimulation as the academic.

Epi Monitor: Would you like to venture an opinion on whether your experience in industry is representative or unique?

Spivey: Let me answer in two ways. In one sense it is fairly unique, mainly because at UNOCAL we have a fairly unique organization as a whole. We have clinical medicine, industrial hygiene, toxicology and epidemiology in the same group. We also now have health education available within the group. In UNOCAL, we seem to be able to work with these disciplines much closer than a lot of other companies with which I am familiar. Other companies tend to split off their people; therefore, those people would report to different department heads, and they appear to have different goals and have problems working together on a combined goal. On the other hand, I think the challenges are there in all of the other companies. They have various meetings in which we can communicate as a whole, and so I do have some information about how other companies function. From that standpoint, I don’t think my situation is unique.

Epi Monitor: In conclusion, can we say that your transfer was relatively successful?

Spivey: I would like to point out that I don’t think the industrial setting is for everybody. Those people who are highly theoretically motivated would not be happy in an industrial setting. You do have to be willing to work in a practical and applied manner. You do get into methodology. I certainly will, to the extent that you have to get the job done. You do not have so much time to “kick back” and relax, so to speak, and concentrate on theory. There is some limitation put on you from an intellectual stand- point. You do have to do what is best for the business; you’re there for a reason. You are not there to do things just because they are fun or that you enjoy. You must focus your direction a bit more. Given the amount of things we have going on, I do not feel that I’m missing any opportunities. The other thing I think I can say about industry, you really have to be able to talk to managers, and to be able to understand their problems, and to be able to communicate to them in terms that they understand. You are dealing with people who have very little understanding of “what you do” in exact terms. You may have to explain why you’re doing what you’re doing, in terms of the kinds of programs, and what needs they’re filling. Even though you find yourself explaining these things to a very interested audience.

Epi Monitor: What about the future? What direction do you see industry headed in? Is it a good time for people to be getting in, or do you feel that it is slowing?

Spivey: I think the demand is there, and that the demand will exist. I think epidem- iology has found a home in industry, and that it will stay there.

Epi Monitor: Is there some period of time that you recall, in which epidemiology and industry “got married” so to speak? Is there a historical event or time period that helped to bring this about?

Spivey: I will try to answer based on what I have heard since I came into industry. The real beginning of the relationship between epidemiology and industry seems to have occurred in the late seventies. At that time business realized its need for epidemiology. I think a lot of it was the occupational and health hazard regulations which helped to promote this. Business realized it needed to provide a safe workplace, the doctors said “we can examine people, but we really can’t help in prevention, because we don’t do that kind of study. We need people who can do that kind of work.” I also expect that the asbestos situation had a lot to do with it, but that’s kind of a guess.

Epi Monitor: Would you say that epidemiology has found a home, that the demand is there and will continue?

Spivey: Yes, I would.

Epi Monitor: Do you feel demand increasing or slowing down, from what it has been in the recent past?

Spivey: I think it has slowed down a bit, to the best of my knowledge. I think the reason for it is the economic down turn. So many companies are tightening their budgets and making cutbacks of various kinds. However, I think many more companies are beginning to establish units. It appears that the aerospace industry is just now getting into it. They are in the very early stages, and I think that growth is inevitable.

Epi Monitor: I think it has been a very thoughtful interview. I think it raises a lot of issues that people will find interesting. Are there any other points you would like to make?

Spivey: One thing, which I touched on earlier, but may not have been very explicit about. I’m almost afraid to go into it again because it may sound self-serving.

Epi Monitor: We can always edit it out.

Spivey: That would have to do with the influence of the company, the supposed pressure to suppress some information. It really goes back to the question of bias. There seems to be a strong anti-industry bias in the academic field, against epidemiologists in industry. I have heard a prominent epidemiologist from an academic setting make public statements about people who have been bought and paid for in the field of industry. Granted, we do not have to answer to management, and they would like us to prove that there isn’t a problem, rather than prove there is. In government, I am sure some of the same things happen. In academia, there’s a real pressure to publish. Therefore, you are more inclined to publish positive reports, rather than negative, or you’re less likely to publish your papers. No one anywhere is free of it. The thing that has impressed me in industry, is that in many ways it is more inclined to find out about problems, from us rather than allow them to continue unchecked. The thing that is very clear is that management wants us to tell the “truth.” If there’s a problem, they want to know about it, and in today’s regulatory climate, they are obligated to release it to the government. By the time you’ve done that, it’s a matter of public record. There’s no reason to avoid making it public from that point, anyway. The quickest way for an epidemiologist to be fired in industry is to try to hide something or to allow management to be blind-sided to a problem that you are sure exists.

Epi Monitor: That’s interesting. I have heard this from one other source. The regulations now say that you must report your findings. People are now under legal obligations. Once a problem comes to your attention you must report it. It’s like your findings are reportable diseases.

Spivey: That’s right. And the penalties are criminal.

Epi Monitor: I would very much like to thank you for your time and patience with this interview.

Spivey: I’m happy to do it. Certainly the subjects are ones which I have interest or concerns about.

Published April 1991 

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