cancer

No Superpowers Needed: How an Alum is Advancing Justice in Cancer Care

As the senior vice president of oncology services at University Medical Center of El Paso, alum Frantz Berthaud (SPH‘15) is spearheading the change he wants to see in cancer care.

Since childhood, Frantz Berthaud‘s favorite superhero has always been Batman.

Unlike most superheroes, Batman has no superhuman powers. “He can’t actually fly. There aren’t lasers coming out of his eyes,” says Berthaud (SPH‘15).

But that’s precisely what drew Berthaud to the character: the idea that anyone can be a superhero if they dedicate themselves to helping others.

Raised by a single, immigrant mother in a household with four sisters, Berthaud learned the value of helping others at a young age. His mother, who came to the U.S. from Haiti in the early ’80s in search of a better life, initially settled in Brooklyn, NY, before moving the family to Salem, Mass. Berthaud’s three older sisters helped raise him, instilling in him the desire to grow up and become a helper too. As the only male in the family, Berthaud yearned to “do and be more” than what his circumstances and neighborhood seemed to offer.

Determined to become a physician, Berthaud applied his ambition to his studies. He earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Boston College and began his career at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in a clinical research role. But as he gained experience with recruiting patients to clinical trials, Berthaud began to see flaws in the healthcare system—problems that, if addressed, could improve both his job and patient care. Motivated to create systemic change, Berthaud decided to forgo medical school to pursue further training in health policy and management at the School of Public Health.

Berthaud realized that as a direct care provider, he could impact the lives of a few thousand people annually, but in health policy, he could shape decisions affecting tens of thousands. “It became a numbers game for me,” he says. “When you’re building public health infrastructure, especially in the cancer space, you’re doing it with the understanding that you’re serving everyone—those left behind and those with fewer resources.”

Over the course of more than a decade at Dana-Farber, Berthaud worked his way up from clinical administrative specialist in a hematopoietic stem cell transplant program to, following the completion of his MPH, administrative director of disease center operations, a role that involved managing $7 milion operations budgets for the Lowe Center for Thoracic Oncology and the Center for Cancer Therapeutic Innovation.

In addition to his work at Dana-Farber, Berthaud returned to SPH to instruct the Strategic Management of Healthcare Organizations course for six years between 2016 and 2022. “That was wonderful, being able to teach that [course] and becoming good friends with Professor Chris Louis. He would teach a section, I would teach a section, and to this day, I still will guest lecture in one of his strategy courses because I just love it so much,” says Berthaud.

The opportunity to teach arose after Berthaud asked Victoria Parker, an adjunct professor in health law, policy, and management and one of Berthaud’s instructors during his MPH studies, why there were not more professors of color in the department, given the field’s emphasis on health equity. “She responded, ‘Why don’t you teach?’” Berthaud recalls. “And I cheekily said, ‘I will.’”

Berthaud wants all students to feel empowered to be the change they wish to see.

“There’s nothing that says we need to be given permission to change the world,” he says.

Berthaud recently became senior vice president of oncology services at University Medical Center (UMC) of El Paso. In his new role, he is overseeing the development of medical oncology, radiation therapy, infusion, imaging, clinical trials, and patient navigation for the new Fox Cancer Center, a brand-new building currently under construction at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso (TTUHSC) in partnership with UMC El Paso.

A key part of his role is assessing the demand for cancer services in the El Paso region. To do so, Berthaud collaborates with stakeholders from UMC El Paso and TTUHSC—such as the chief of strategy, the chief nursing officer, and the infusion manager—as well as community members such as the battalion chief of a local firehouse and attendees of a recent border health innovation summit. “That work starts now, so that when we do turn the lights on in the building, we’re ready to go,” says Berthaud.

When the demands of daily meetings obscure his greater purpose, Berthaud reflects on a framed copy of Massachusetts law Chapter 231 of the Acts of 2024 hanging in his office. Before he moved to Texas, he had the honor of testifying on behalf of that bill when it was under consideration by the Massachusetts House and titled “An Act Relative to Medically Necessary Breast Screenings and Exams for Equity and Early Detection.” In his testimony, Berthaud shared his personal connection to cancer, including his work at Dana-Farber and the loss of his sister Morva to breast cancer in 2017. The bill passed into law on November 13, 2024.

“Anytime I get the chance, I’m going to tell my truth and say why I’m in the cancer space, why I’m so relentless in this work, because I have seen what cancer does to people, to families, to communities, and I want to prevent that. If I can be the Batman to someone or someone’s family for just a moment in time, I’ll take it,” says Berthaud.

For MPH students pursuing healthcare leadership and management, Berthaud’s journey is a model. “Whether you’re improving care for patients at your healthcare organization or your fingerprints are on a bill that is going to positively impact entire communities—that to me is the hallmark of what it means to be in public health.”