The Stanford Graduate School of Business Alumni Association recently presented Laura Esserman (MBA ’93) with the Arbuckle Award.
The prestigious honor is given to graduates who have shown the ability to affect meaningful change in their chosen fields.
Dr. Esserman, a pioneer in oncology research and a renowned breast cancer surgeon, is also a professor of surgery and radiology at the University of California, San Francisco.
Professor of Organizational Behavior Jeffrey Pfeffer said of Esserman:
“[She] is in the process of making profound changes in the world of medicine… Her work has changed how other physicians practice, including how they use mammography and radiation, and how they recruit patients for clinical trials.”
Esserman has founded and implemented various clinical trials that are widely used by physicians during breast cancer treatment.
Of her time at Stanford GSB, Dr. Esserman said:
“I learned about systems. I learned about other industries. I learned that medicine was just another industry. There was no reason why we couldn’t learn to innovate the way the most progressive industries had innovated. I learned that you have to think about organizational behavior. I even learned accounting.”
To affect great change, she continued, one must have “imagination, inspiration, courage, and – perhaps most important – a true sense of urgency.”