Ombuds Office

The office serves all employees at MD Anderson, including faculty, classified and administrative staff, trainees, postdocs and students.

Why should you visit us?

The Ombuds Office follows the Standards of Practice set by the International Ombuds Association. We are:

• Confidential 
• Informal 
• Impartial 
• Independent 

When should you visit us?

At times, you may need to contact someone for help with your workplace issue, concern, or conflict. With your permission we can help you:

• By listening to your concerns
• Understand your conflict style and help you improve the ways you handle conflict 
• Think through your problem, explore options and evaluate each option 
• Proactively explore ways to avoid unproductive conflict, lower negative emotions and increase understanding in an upcoming work situation 
• Prepare for a difficult conversation with an employee
• Understand a policy 
• Explore options for research/authorship disagreement 
• By facilitating a diplomatic communication between you and another employee 
• Mediate a conversation to reach a mutual agreement
• Facilitate a team discussion or activity to help resolve an issue or concern 
• By referring you to the other institutional resources that can help you

What we don’t do

The Ombuds Office supplements, but does not replace, other resolution options available at MD Anderson. Ombudspersons are unable to:

• Advocate on behalf of any party
• Make administrative or policy decisions
• Testify about confidential communications in judicial or administrative proceedings or serve as a witness in a formal hearing
• Participate in any formal disciplinary process
• Serve as a place to give the institution notice of claims against it

If you're a patient

The Ombuds Office does not work directly with patients. Patients can find assistance by contacting Patient Advocacy at 713-792-7776 (after hours and weekends, call 713-792-7090).  For more information about Patient Advocacy, please visit their website.