It’s been a roundabout path that’s brought Max Coppes to northern Nevada. He was born in the Netherlands. There were school stops in Spain and France growing up. He served a year in the Dutch Air Force as a young physician, but being around pilots wasn’t a long-term motivator.
In 1988, the good doctor made the trek to North America for a job at the children’s hospital in Toronto, but his travels were far from finished. There were job opportunities he embraced and thrived in during stops in Cleveland, Calgary, Washington, DC, and Vancouver, BC before a call came from the Reno-Tahoe region.
In Europe, Coppes started his career in pediatric medicine before morphing into pediatric oncology. During his time in Cleveland, he began to work in the lab and focus on research. Still, the demands of health care always kept him seeing patients.
Then, in 2014, 26 years after leaving his native Europe, Coppes got a call to check out a job opportunity in the Biggest Little City.
“I was head of the cancer department in Vancouver. That’s one of the best programs in Canada. I was convinced that would be my last job,” Coppes explains. “But politics intervened. The culture had changed there, and I was uncomfortable looking myself in the mirror.”
“Then came the opportunity to come to Reno. I admit, I didn’t know where Reno was.”
Luckily Coppes found a map. He may have located Reno, but he and his wife almost chose to leave before even learning how to say Nevada. Max and Arty arrived for the job interview and on their first night decided to go for a cruise around town. Reno didn’t put its best foot forward.
“We drove around the McCarran loop and inside it,” Coppes recalls. “We didn’t see the best parts of town.” Arty didn’t want to move.
On day two the Coppes family Realtor drove them up to Lake Tahoe and through old SW Reno as well as Montreux and many other areas that feature the area’s natural beauty. That brought a change of heart. When the couple got on the plane to fly back to Vancouver, Arty playfully said maybe she’d move if Max twisted her arm.
Dr. Coppes accepted a position to serve as Executive Vice President and Chief Medical and Academic Officer of Renown Health. Less than two years later, Coppes took on a new role as Physician-in-Chief at Renown Children’s Hospital. His current title is Director of Renown’s Pennington Cancer Institute, a position he’s held for the past four years.
“Reno has been incredible,” Coppes gushes. “I love the outdoors. I love the people. September (the Davis Fire) confirmed why we love it here… So many people offered to help. It’s a special community… When that stuff happens, nobody asks who you’re voting for. People just reach out and say, ‘how can I help’? That’s the beauty of community. People can grow above themselves.”
Given his career choices—pediatrics and pediatric oncology—Dr. Coppes has helped plenty of others grow. Many more kids have grown up to live happy, healthy lives thanks at least in part to Coppes. And many of the job stops for Coppes over the years have been better because of him too.
“My philosophy is everybody gets up in the morning wanting to do the right thing,” he says. “I’ve always been attracted to helping people in a tangible way. I don’t remember ever wanting to do anything else.”
Coppes got into pediatrics because he had fun with kids and could relate to them. Then, early in his days as a doctor, he learned something important about himself; he was driven by the ‘why.’ That may be the biggest factor in his love for research.
The doctor was caring for a teenage girl in Canada stricken with leukemia when he was reading an article that was a game-changer for him.
“The article talked about what can cause a cell to become cancerous and then I thought, ‘oh my God I think I understand it.’ The article didn’t give me the answer, but it gave me the tools to start thinking about how cells in the body turn into cancer.”
“From my perspective, cells do what they’re told to do. If a cell gets the message to divide, it will divide. Cells get a message, so understanding cancer is about understanding the miscommunication to a cell.”
In Layman’s terms, Coppes thinks the secrets to managing, if not curing, cancer lie in the ability of researchers to understand and then manipulate that cell communication.
As if running the Pennington Cancer Institute wasn’t enough to keep a guy busy, Coppes is also a Professor of Pediatrics and Internal Medicine for the University of Nevada, Reno. He believes the two roles provide a unique synergy that benefits both Renown and UNR.
The doctor has sky-high expectations for the Pennington Institute. He wants to lead the charge for it to become an NCI (National Cancer Institute)-designated facility. The prestigious designation is given to only the best cancer hospitals in the country. Coppes points out there are only 72 in the U.S. and none in the Silver State. He believes through elite recruiting and tireless fundraising that goal can be accomplished.
“I don’t see patients anymore. I’m 100 percent in administration. I’m a leader now,” Coppes says. “My job is to make sure our leaders have everything they need to do their jobs.”
Coppes is very forthcoming about his background, what drives him and what he enjoys. With a doctorate and an MBA, he’s certainly got plenty of academic prowess. So, with an openness to talk and the brain power to problem solve, you can’t walk away from a conversation with the doctor without asking the big question.
Is a cure for cancer out there?
“Survival rates overall have improved. The optimistic part of me says we’re making substantial gains managing cancer,” Coppes says. “For some cancers, I think we can completely eradicate them, but we’re all going to die right? As we get older, the chances of getting cancer increase. For other cancers, I think we’ll be able to manage them, like we manage diabetes, but maybe not eradicate them.”
Reno is lucky to have Coppes fighting the good fight in the northern Nevada community. Certainly, all the people he’s helped here hope he doesn’t leave anytime soon. And if he does, he might be alone.
“My wife has always been supportive of my professional adventures,” Coppes says. “But a few years ago, she said … ‘If you’ll leave, I’ll stay supportive, but you know where to find me.’”
“My philosophy is everybody gets up in the morning wanting to do the right thing,” - Max Coppes, MD