Building a nationally recognized sarcoma program may sound like a recruiting challenge, but Kristy Weber, MD, says it’s actually a trust challenge.
Over the course of her career, Dr. Weber has helped build nationally recognized sarcoma programs at both Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins University and Philadelphia-based University of Pennsylvania. Along the way, she’s learned that the difference between an average program and an exceptional one rarely comes down to facilities, technology or even individual surgeons.
It comes down to whether dozens of specialists can function as a single team.
“The people on the team are the most important,” Dr. Weber told Becker’s. “Decision-making and communication between the people on the team is the most important for me as the leader, and also for every single patient that comes through.”
In April, the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons recognized Dr. Weber’s contributions with the 2026 William W. Tipton Jr., MD, Leadership Award, making her the first woman to receive the honor. For Dr. Weber, however, leadership has never been about titles. It has been about building systems that allow patients to receive better care.
How elite programs are built differently
Before arriving at Johns Hopkins and later Penn, Dr. Weber trained at institutions including Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic and Houston-based MD Anderson Cancer Center, where she observed highly coordinated multidisciplinary cancer programs operating at scale.
Those experiences shaped her expectations.
“When I trained at Mayo, I thought it was incredibly high level,” she said. “My bar was the Mayo Clinic.” But recreating that level of coordination proved difficult.
“You don’t just walk in and snap your fingers and say we’re here, we’re doing it,” Dr. Weber said. “Sometimes it’s a multi-year effort because you don’t have the right people in certain spots, and recruitment in an academic medical center can take years.”
Developing a sarcoma program requires far more than hiring surgeons. It takes creating a network of radiologists, pathologists, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, plastic surgeons, vascular surgeons, advanced practice providers, nurses and support staff who can work together seamlessly.
Not least of all, it requires trust. “A really highly functioning multidisciplinary team has a lot of trust,” she said.
The work patients never see
Patients may assume multidisciplinary care happens automatically, but much of the most important work occurs outside the clinic and outside the operating room.
“I would probably talk to pathology and radiology every day,” she said. “I would talk to the medical oncologists multiple times a week. I was constantly doing that.”
Those conversations often determine whether care feels coordinated or fragmented, but are largely invisible, to patients.
“You don’t get paid for that,” Dr. Weber said. “You don’t get paid for these phone calls. You don’t get paid for spending an extra hour and a half of your day communicating. There’s no RVU on that.”
Yet she believes those interactions are often what patients value most. “What patients want to hear is that people are communicating about their care,” she said. When communication breaks down, patients notice.
“Everybody’s got their own idea about what the plan is, and nobody’s talking to each other,” Dr. Weber said. “I’ve seen that in my own family and friends. It’s so frustrating, and the patient loses confidence.”
For her, multidisciplinary care is not a marketing phrase. It is an operational discipline.
Leadership without authority
One of the biggest misconceptions about building specialty programs, Dr. Weber said, is that leaders can simply direct resources where they want them to go. The reality is often far more complicated.
Many of the specialists required for a comprehensive sarcoma program report to entirely different departments, chairs and leadership structures. Success depends less on authority than influence.
“As the leader of the program, I needed to be able to influence those department chairs without authority,” she said. That meant building relationships, advocating for resources and convincing leaders that investments in sarcoma-focused faculty would ultimately benefit patients and the institution.
“It takes a lot of work,” she said. The challenge is magnified because sarcoma is relatively rare. Many health systems naturally prioritize programs that generate larger volumes. Building a world-class sarcoma center often requires leaders willing to make the case that complexity, quality and patient impact matter just as much as scale.
Why trust matters more than hierarchy
Over time, Dr. Weber came to believe that trust is the single most important ingredient in a multidisciplinary program — more than hierarchy, organizational charts and titles.
“The most important people on the team for me personally were the musculoskeletal radiologist and the musculoskeletal pathologist,” she said. “If we get the diagnosis wrong, that’s a problem.”
That philosophy shaped how treatment decisions were made. Cases were reviewed collectively. Questions were debated openly. Treatment plans evolved through discussion rather than unilateral decision-making.
“We always had everybody else’s back,” she said. “We didn’t make final treatment plans until team members were comfortable.” The result was not only better collaboration among physicians, but greater confidence for patients navigating life-changing diagnoses.
The tension facing modern healthcare
Dr. Weber worries that some of the activities most critical to exceptional care are increasingly difficult to sustain in a healthcare environment focused on productivity.
“There is such a focus on volume,” she said. “There is such a focus on RVU-driven care.” She understands the pressures health systems face. But she also believes many of the things that differentiate outstanding programs from average ones are difficult to measure.
Communication, coordination, mentorship, team building and advocacy require time, and time is increasingly scarce. Yet Dr. Weber remains convinced they are worth protecting.
“I was and still am a fierce advocate for high-level patient care,” she said.
What she’s most proud of
After decades of leadership roles, national recognition and academic accomplishments, Dr. Weber’s answer to what matters most remains remarkably simple.
“I went into medicine to take care of patients,” she said. “I didn’t go into medicine to make money. I didn’t go into medicine to be well known.” That mission became the foundation for every program she helped build. And it remains the lens through which she measures success today.
“At the end of the day, what I’m most proud of is that I was fiercely dedicated to my patients and to the team that worked together to provide great care,” Dr. Weber said.
For leaders hoping to build enduring programs of their own, she believes the lesson is straightforward. Start with the team. Earn trust. Keep the patient at the center of every decision. The rest takes care of itself.
At the Becker’s 32nd Annual Meeting: The Business and Operations of ASCs, taking place October 29-31 in Chicago, ASC leaders, surgeons and healthcare executives will explore strategies to drive growth, enhance operational performance, navigate reimbursement challenges and prepare for the future of ambulatory surgery. Apply for complimentary registration now.
