The day after Spotlight PA published an investigation into the Penn State Cancer Institute, director Raymond Hohl resigned. The newsroom talked with employees who said there were chemotherapy mistakes, treatment delays and a "toxic" workplace.
WPSU’s Sydney Roach talked with Wyatt Massey, the Penn State Investigative Reporter at Spotlight PA and one of the writers of this story, to learn more about what he and co-reporter Charlotte Keith found.
Sydney Roach
Wyatt Massey, thank you for talking with me.
Wyatt Massey
Thank you for having me.
Sydney Roach
Can you tell us what exactly is the Penn State Cancer Institute, and how you found this story?
Wyatt Massey
Yeah. So, the the Penn State Cancer Institute exists in Hershey at the Hershey Medical Center. It works closely with the College of Medicine, much like other parts of the Hershey Medical Center. And for more than two decades, Penn State has wanted this cancer center in Hershey to be among the most elite cancer centers in America.
And, what they wanted specifically was designation by the National Cancer Institute. So there are only a handful of cancer centers across the country that have that special designation. There are already five in Pennsylvania. But those are primarily based in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. So getting that designation for central and south central Pennsylvania would have been huge, or would be huge, for Penn State.
Sydney Roach
And how did you come across this story?
Wyatt Massey
Yeah, we had done reporting around the health system, originally. And we had gotten a tip about some concerns with how the cancer institute was being run and the leadership as well as this, you know, two-decade-plus-long push to get designation and sort of how money was spent. You know, were the investments going to the right places because it had taken so long and it didn't seem to be making much headway toward that goal.
Sydney Roach
Can you explain what kinds of mistakes and treatment delays you discovered during this investigation?
Wyatt Massey
So we, pretty early on, we were looking at the the leadership of the cancer institute for that main question of, you know, sort of how close were they to getting designation and why weren't things going better? And we found pretty early that Penn State itself had repeatedly investigated the Director of the Cancer Institute, Dr. Raymond Hohl, repeatedly in recent years, sort of between early 2022 and mid 2023, for alleged problems with his leadership as well as his care of patients.
So some of the records that we obtained showed that his sloppy record keeping had caused multiple errors. Some of those errors were patients receiving extra doses of chemotherapy by accident. In two cases, those mistakes came from inaccurate information that was copy and pasted in the patient medical records, and that led to a miscount of the number of doses that they had received.
And then the reviews also found that two patients in Dr. Hohl's care had the wrong type of cancer documented in their medical records. And then in one case from 2022, a patient treated received treatment for a type of lung cancer that they actually did not have.
Others had faced unexplained delays in changing treatment or having scans done, and those scans are important because they were checking, you know, whether their cancer had progressed.
The other big thing that we found is that Penn State had looked into Dr. Hohl's leadership of the Cancer Institute. So sort of separate from his treatment of patients was, "What was he like as a leader and manager of this outfit that had really big ambitions?" And they concluded that Dr. Hohl perpetuated a workplace culture that was "toxic" and "hostile." Those are two words that they used in two separate reviews. And we found through the records and then in speaking to people connected to the cancer institute, there was a level of fear and mistrust among staff and employees, and that caused a lot of turnover among staff and doctors. And then from that turnover, there's kind of downstream effects with the remaining employees having to take on extra patients to kind of keep things going.
Sydney Roach
How has Penn State Health responded to this story? Do they refute the findings? I mean, it sounds like a lot of this is from their own analysis that they commissioned.
Wyatt Massey
Throughout the the months leading up to publication, we had asked Penn State to speak to some of the leaders that would have been involved in this, and they declined to be interviewed. We contacted some people directly, you know, went through the communications office. We sent Penn State a list of questions. You know, I think it was around 30 questions, kind of looking for specific information. And Penn State's response was pretty general. They said that they "operate a world-class cancer institute, they're constantly working to expand how they treat different types of cancers, including rare and difficult cancers."
And then after, like the day the story published, they did put out a statement kind of focusing on that a lot of the reviews and problems that we were talking about in the story had happened several years earlier, and they're sort of claimed then was that things had really improved, and this was kind of backward looking.
Sydney Roach
This investigation is one of many stories you’ve reported on during your three years at Spotlight PA, and, as I understand, that time is coming to a close, right?
Wyatt Massey
It is, yeah. So I'll be leaving Spotlight at the end of the year (and) going back to my home state of Wisconsin, to the hometown of my wife and be closer to her family and my family as well.
Sydney Roach
How do you feel about the impact and legacy of your work?
Wyatt Massey
Well, I'm from the Midwest. I can't, like, the minute feelings come up I just shut down. But, I mean, I think it really speaks to the the support that central Pennsylvania has provided to Spotlight PA to launch this bureau. So, my position was created when the State College bureau was created in 2022. We've just seen a lot of very positive support for the work that we're doing as a bureau.
We've done quite a bit of great work, and I think I've provided a great service to the community. So it's been really inspiring to sort of start something new, but then also sort of get feedback from the community of how much the work means to them. So I think that's been really meaningful to kind of have that relationship and start something new because it can be dark times in journalism in America in 2025. So it was like little bits of shining light mean a lot.
Sydney Roach
Wyatt Massey, thanks for talking with us.
Wyatt Massey
Yeah, thank you for having me.
