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Another Update

3/12/2018

38 Comments

 
"Once again, for those new to this blog site, at present there are 49 posts on the blog and each has its own set of comments. To read the comments you have to hit the word "Comments" at the beginning or end of the post. Somewhat confusing is that when you bring up the comments for a specific post it eliminates the other posts from the screen. To bring the other posts back up simply go back to the top of the page and click on Blog. Feel free to comment should you wish. No email address is required to make a comment so anonymity is strong. Due to some previous abuse of this right to anonymously comment, I have had to include an approval option, but I try to approve constructive comments within 24 hours. One last point of note, to read the earliest posts you have to click on the word "​<<Previous" at the very bottom of the posts available. Finally, for those just looking for a good summary of the Dr. Kearney case, simply scroll down to the previous 12/10/2016 post. For social media developments on the Dr. Kearney situation I would encourage you to visit the excellent "Save Dr. Kearney Facebook Page": 
https://www.facebook.com/Save-Dr-Kearney-1039697039481791/

So here we go again.  As noted in the previous blog post, on March 20, 2018, the three lawyers hired by the University and the lawyer for Dr. Kearney will go before a judge to determine whether or not this new judge will finally side with the most powerful University and dismiss the Whistleblower lawsuit Dr. Kearney has filed against the University. The University lawyers have filed their “Motion for Summary Judgment” (see here) and Dr. Kearney’s lawyer has filed his “Response to Motion for Summary Judgment” (see here).  As I understand it, after reading and cogitating over these documents, the judge then decides whether or not to allow this matter to proceed to the next level, that being a jury trial. I have no knowledge as to whether or not the judge hears verbal arguments from both sides or whether he just acts upon the evidence presented in these documents. As noted previously, both documents are fairly long (26 pages for the Motion and 24 pages for the Response) with hundreds of pages of “Exhibits”. In an effort to give folks an opportunity to understand what is being dealt with here I will attempt to summarize.
 
UK’s Motion vs. Dr. Kearney’s Response:
 
-  The first five pages of the Motion are background wherein the UK-hired lawyers present evidence for Dr. Kearney’s “history of bad behavior” and the justifications for the disciplinary actions taken against Dr. Kearney. This is clearly their attempt to discredit Dr. Kearney as a physician and teacher, which they then wish to use to discredit any retaliation aspect to Dr. Kearney’s Whistleblowing lawsuit. It basically paints Dr. Kearney as almost an evil and dangerous person, and the evidence and pretense for almost all of this is predicated upon what boils down to be "a history of unprofessional vocabulary."  This is somewhat easy for Dr. Kearney’s attorney to respond to because they fail to once again mention the "25 years of outstanding performance evaluations, promotions and awards" that Dr. Kearney has received and that the administration has signed off on throughout this time period of this so called bad behavior.

-  The UK-hired lawyers then move into attempts to justify the MSEC trial and the actions they took in their attempt to silence and destroy Dr. Kearney’s medical career.  In this they surprisingly include Dr. Zwischenberger’s December 2012 reprimand letter (see page 9 of this document) that, as we have seen, is unsigned by Dr. Kearney so we can’t even be sure he even received it. This report then goes on to discuss the MSEC investigation and the formation of the two member ad hoc investigative committee that was assigned to investigate the complaints used as a premise by the CMO (Dr. Boulanger) to suspend Dr. Kearney’s clinical privileges.  I know that Dr. Kearney’s lawyer did not note this, but item 9.2.1 of the UK Healthcare Medical Staff Bylaws (see here) states: “The ad hoc committee shall be comprised of three members of the Medical Staff, which will include the Vice President at the primary practice site of the affected Practitioner and at least one other who is a member of the Active Medical Staff at the primary practice site of the affected Practitioner.” I feel certain this is to assure, as the UK lawyers put it, “the suspension is not motivated by a personal or professional vendetta.” With that in mind, one might reasonably ask, did these people have trouble counting to three or were they unable to find a putative third party to fit their desired end? Of course, as we have noted previously, Dr. Kearney’s Whistleblowing lawsuit targets KMSF money management and both of the ad hoc investigators assigned in this instance are paid through KMSF. A final point of issue here is the observation that this team of “two” very busy physicians were given just “one week” to investigate claims that were the premise for revoking Dr. Kearney’s clinical privileges, barring Dr. Kearney from entering campus, barring Dr. Kearney from conversations with anyone on campus and basically barring Dr. Kearney from creating a defense.

-  Then in an attempt to make these charges more pervasive the UK-hired lawyers cite the single anonymous student complaint. Unfortunately they fail to note that it is the only one on Dr. Kearney’s 25 year record of teaching and needs to be balanced against 29 teaching awards. Furthermore, I believe that a recording of this lecture (they probably forgot that these lectures are actually recorded) in which the anonymous student complaint was lodged suspiciously identified nothing offensive in this presentation. In fact, I believe he received an ovation at the end of it.
 
-  Finally we have what the UK-hired lawyers would like you to believe was the “last straw”, that being the quadriplegic patient complaint that claimed Dr. Kearney called him a f**king quad. A few things that they don’t mention about this complaint (that by the way originated as a Facebook post by the patient’s mother) was: a) that the patient was under the influence of mind altering drugs during this procedure, b) The “two” assigned MSEC investigators looking into this incident interviewed those present in the endoscopy suite where this was alleged to have occurred and everyone denied hearing Dr. Kearney call this patient a f**king quad, c) Dr. Kearney denied calling the patient a f**king quad, d) the patient tried to sue for damages and the court “dismissed the case with prejudice”, and e) the university submitted this case and their other historical evidence to the Board of Licensure in an attempt to get Dr. Kearney’s medical license revoked and this came back with: “there is insufficient evidence to warrant a complaint”. In all of their interviews the worst these two investigators could come up with was Dr. Kearney admitting saying to the patient, “Hey dumb-ass we are trying to help you, just relax”. So what it appears we have here is the University hiring outside lawyers to defend a mother’s Facebook claim that her drug-impaired son believed that the doctor attempting to save his life insulted him.  I suspect we would have very few physicians left in the hospital if this were the standard premise for revoking patient privileges.
 
I think more to the point here, the evidence that these UK-hired lawyers have presented here in their efforts to denigrate Dr. Kearney's character and to detract from the possibility that these extreme measures to silence Dr. Kearney had something to do with Dr. Kearney’s Whistleblowing lawsuit, had just the opposite effect. The contradictions of the many accomplishments and accolades this hospital administration has awarded Dr. Kearney over this same time period they now wish to claim this aberrant behavior, along with the many inconsistencies in the allegations being made and the severity of the punishment inflicted upon Dr. Kearney, "just doesn’t fit". With that in mind one must then begin to ask “what really is behind this sudden attempt to silence Dr. Kearney and drive him out of the hospital/physician environment and preferably out of the University?"
 
The next section of the UK-hired lawyers Motion for Summary Judgment document attempts to discredit Dr. Kearney’s Whistleblowing case.  The crux of their argument is pretty much the same one they made in their last 2 attempts to get this case dismissed. I suspect, because this is a new judge, they had to provide some form of excuse why their motion to dismiss was itself dismissed twice before, so they used the old benevolent “court granting Dr. Kearney time to conduct limited discovery on limited topics”. Of course they had no good explanation for why the court dismissed this motion the second time.  Strange, they also did not mention anything about the many times they tried to drag this whole process out by blocking attempts to depose individuals central to the case Dr. Kearney’s lawyer was trying to make.
 
It is clear that these University-hired lawyers recognize that the strength of Dr. Kearney’s Whistleblowing case rests in: a) the January 2014 Faculty Council meeting that brought up the topic of the infamous KMSF Practice Plan Committee that didn’t meet for over 4 years yet was thought to be actively involved in a variety of money management decisions UKHC administrators had been making over this time period, and b) the April 2014 Faculty Council meeting that Dr. Karpf and General Counsel Bill Thro called to discuss this “legal matter” related to the Practice Plan Committee concerns aired by Dr. Kearney and others in the January Faculty Council meeting. The contentions of the University-hired lawyers are that: a) Complaining about publicly known or available information is not a “disclosure” for purposes of whistleblowing, b) Complaining about the Practice Plan Committee’s communication or lack thereof is not a report about the violation of any law or rule, c) Dr. Kearney did not complain to an appropriate official, and d) Dr. Kearney cannot prove his alleged whistleblowing was a contributing factor to the disciplinary action taken against him. In responding to these Dr. Kearney’s lawyer argues that a) the law/rule violated and cited by D. Kearney in the April Faculty Council meeting was AR 3:14, b) in essence Dr. Kearney complained to both the EVPHA and General Counsel for the University, c) Dr. Kearney was verbally disciplined at the Faculty Council meeting for suggesting an audit of KMSF to clear up any confusion with respect to money management issues, and d) KMSF money management is not published public information and even Open Records requests to obtain it as we have seen are being denied.

I think, or perhaps I should say I hope, when the judge takes everything into consideration, including the issues at hand, the timing and severity of the disciplinary actions taken by the hospital administration against Dr. Kearney, and the coincidental disappearance of many of the major UKHC and KMSF employees involved in these proceedings, a case can be made for advancing this to the next level, that being a jury trial. 
38 Comments
Dan Noonan
3/13/2018 03:33:39 am

Just an FYI. A late comment on the previous post suggests that the time and date of the hearing for this Motion has changed to 2pm on March 20. I have yet to confirm that.

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RDP
3/13/2018 06:35:32 am

I don't think as a matter of law this has to be decided by a jury trial- I think that's why Kearney's lawyer keeps saying that "matters of fact" have to be established because that's what the Jury would do, as opposed to deciding the case on "matters of law" which would be done by a judge. So even if this does go forwards presumably the next year will be spent arguing over how the case will be tried. So I wouldn't get your hopes up for a settlement just yet.

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Dan Noonan
3/13/2018 08:13:33 am

Thanks for the comment and clarification RDP. Well I suppose another year of the blog couldn't hurt. The University and especially the hospital have been fairly good about providing fodder for the blog, whether it be the Dr. Kearney controversy, the mismanagement of billing and finances by KMSF, the Press-Gainey survey, the Open Records disputes, the sexual harassment controversies, the Wethington Award, etc. etc. Cuts into my relaxing retirement, but someone's got to do it.

As an added note, I have confirmed that the hearing for this Motion has been changed to March 20th.

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Kell
4/16/2018 10:18:35 am

There will be no settlement. Dr. K is not looking for a settlement. The point here is to expose the criminals, return Dr K to teaching, have the UKadmin admit they lied--we have that on tape under oath in deposition-- & yes expose the corrupt cabal personally & professionally. & finally of course my big ?? show us the KMSF $$ audit. Since Karphf Zwish DeBeer & Capilouto will never admit they were wrong & made it all up to cover what they are up to w KMSF $$, this will go to trial.

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Blob
3/13/2018 09:35:39 am

What damages or other restitution is kearney asking for?

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Dan Noonan
3/13/2018 11:34:14 am

Thanks for the question Blob, but sorry I have no idea.

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Booboo
3/13/2018 01:24:49 pm

Unless he is being paid off by the university/KMSF, which is a real possibility, I can’t see any judge wanting to get involved in this battle. Safer to simply let some jury decide it.

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Dan Noonan
3/13/2018 01:33:07 pm

Thanks for the comment Booboo. I hope you are right. I think Dr. Kearney might have a better chance at winning this with everyday folks deciding its fate. They tend to be less sanctimonious and often side with David rather than the Goliath. But that is just my opinion.

Save Dr Kearney
3/21/2018 01:40:55 pm

Dr. Kearney is looking to correct the public record of the lies told about him by the UKMC administration in order to hide their malfeasance at KMSF. He is not looking for 'damages & restitution'. He is looking to undo damage & restore his reputation as well as teach again. Along the way should we expose & destroy someone else's reputation? Oh well.

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Dan Noonan
3/21/2018 02:02:17 pm

Thanks for the comment Save Dr Kearney. There is a clear agenda here to destroy Dr. Kearney's career and reputation. The General Council has made that clear. The trial without a defense and the total absence of due process throughout these proceedings clearly speak to the miscarriage of justice that this has turned out to be. Very few people would or could take on this Goliath. Dr. Kearney doing so to clear his name has proven to be a benefit to all of us.

Kell
4/16/2018 10:19:09 am

none

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Felix Leiter
3/13/2018 04:25:07 pm

Surprised there is no mention / discussion of the bombshell that was mentioned on the "Save Dr Kearney" Facebook page.

The non renewal of the contract of a certain harmonica player administrator?

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Dan Noonan
3/14/2018 02:29:30 am

Thanks for this comment Felix. If accurate, I suspect few tears will be shed about this news.

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Super mole
3/14/2018 07:21:47 am

Its true!

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Dan Noonan
3/14/2018 08:24:41 am

Thanks Super mole. If I remember correctly, these Chair contracts are for 6 years. So I guess the next question is, when does his current contract end?

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Super Mole
3/14/2018 09:40:55 am

His chair appointment is through 4/30/19
http://exploreuk.uky.edu/catalog/xt78cz323j67_33

Presumably they will have a search and pick from one of the many outstanding candidates who will apply for the job..Just joking. Of course they will waste a huge amount of money on a search firm to identify mediocre candidates we don't want or good candidates who won't come here and then appoint an interim/internal chair.

Now before you all get as excited as the Kearney Kool Aid Konsumers over on Facebook don't forget that this is just his administrative appointment as chair. Just like Kearney, Zwisch is a Tenured Full Professor with an endowed chair so we're not talking about "firing" him or putting him out of a job.

In fact I am sure that everyone who has championed Kearney's academic privilege and freedom will respect Zwishenberger's right to pursue his academic and scholarly activities (whatever these are) once he returns to the faculty.

Wouldn't it be ironic if Kearney and Zwisch end up with adjacent offices over in the multidisciplinary sciences building :-)

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Dan Noonan
3/14/2018 11:11:04 am

Thanks for the clarifications Super Mole. If Dr. Zwischenberger, upon stepping down from this Chair position, does not see patients do you think General Council Thro will send his old buddy a letter telling him that he is now obligated to “develop a comprehensive research plan including external funding”, teach, and reduce his salary to $43,500.00?

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Super Mole
3/14/2018 11:25:57 am

$43,500 is close to the average household income in Kentucky so since as you keep reminding us this is a public state university it doesn't seem unreasonable to peg institutional salary support at about that level and to reasonably expect that faculty will generate clinical income or research income if they want to get paid more (yes, you could throw teaching in as a source of income)

From what I'm hearing about the precipitous decline in medicaid payments to the hospital everyone without grants or clinical income could be on $43,500 soon

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Dan Noonan
3/14/2018 04:23:40 pm

Thanks for this comment Super Mole. I only mention the $43,500 because that’s what General Council Thro reduced Dr. Kearney’s salary to. I can’t tell you by what authority the General Council has to define faculty salaries, but his signature is the only one on the letter so I can only guess he unfortunately has that authority. If that be the case, I have a few suggestions for him that I think might help the budget if we are that hard up for money. This College of Medicine site (https://med.uky.edu/college-leadership) lists 35 people with the word Dean in their title. The contact information for 24 of these is someone other than themselves meaning they have paid employees to assist them in their work. Furthermore, most if not all of these people get bumps in their salary for doing what some might categorize as a service function. Remember that’s that category on the DOE that Dean de Beer would have preferred that we simply eliminate.

In his April 20, 2016 letter to Dr. Kearney’s attorney, that can be accessed on the 12/10/2016 review blog post, General Council Thro displays all sorts of authority beyond that of salary man. In defiance to what the Board of Trustees dictated, he bars Dr. Kearney from teaching, bars him from activities within the hospital and states: “the University will allow him to pursue non-clinical research, but expects him to develop a comprehensive research plan including external funding.” I wonder if the General has to okay the research topic also?

Last but not least, I agree, reducing the salary of everyone without grant funding or clinical income to $43,500 is another possible solution to this budget crisis. Of course we would have to close down the school because all of these people would leave and there would be nobody left to teach and out the window would go that annual 5-10 million dollars in medical school tuition revenue. I realize that there are some out there that would prefer that this place be a research institute rather than a university, but I don’t think the taxpayers of this state that contribute to the academic component of this university would find that highly acceptable.

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Lrh
3/15/2018 03:46:26 am

With the new curriculum even in the pre clinical years a lot of the medical student teaching is done by clinicians. There just isn’t enough medical school teaching for 230 basic sciences faculty, even if this was restricted to the ~130 of these who have no research funding or inadequate funding. So I think if cutting state or institutional salary support made these people leave that could be quite attractive to the university.

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Dan Noonan
3/15/2018 04:43:22 am

Thanks for the comment Lrh. These are good points but there are a few things that bother me about this. The first is the impact this policy would have on recruiting and retention. I suspect in the avarice to drive out any basic scientist struggling with his/her funding you in turn will drive out funded scientists, and with this policy in place I can't see many funded researchers wanting to enter a job wherein the moment they lose their funding they are making less than their postdocs.

Secondly, it's not all about profit. There is more going on here than teaching medical students. As much as many may not like it, as the major public university in Kentucky we actually teach undergraduates and are required to offer PhD level graduate degrees. We have the obligation or what some might say, "mandate" to provide this opportunity to the youth of this state.

Finally, I would like to note that research, for all practical purposes, does not bring much real money into the university. The funds provided in a grant are used in performing the research proposed in the grant, similar to the prospect that teaching brings in tuition that pays for the salary of the person(s) doing the teaching. Beyond that, the state actually throws in taxpayer revenue for the explicit purpose of paying teacher’s salaries.

So I guess what I am saying here is that this idea of making paupers out of faculty that only teach, simply to drive them out of the university, is counterintuitive to what a state university should be doing. Again, just my opinion.

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Super Mole
3/15/2018 06:39:01 am

"I can't see many funded researchers wanting to enter a job wherein the moment they lose their funding they are making less than their postdocs. "

A guaranteed salary of $50K for a full professor is very much in line with the commitment to tenured non clinical biomedical research faculty at top 20 public research universities around the country.

And of course 100% of post doc salaries come from grants.

I agree that this isn't very encouraging but its the way things are.

Of course the reason these better places can hire and retain faculty is that they have environments that support and enable people to be successful.

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Dan Noonan
3/15/2018 09:14:34 am

Thanks for the comment Super Mole. I might be wrong about this, but I believe that your $50,000 average for full professors in the top 20 public research universities is a bit off. According to this article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professors_in_the_United_States

which appears to have pretty good documentation for their figures, back in 2005-2006 the lowest median full professor salary by field was $68,214 and the highest median salary by field was $136,634. I can’t believe that this number has gone down since 2006. Furthermore it is stated in this article:

“The absence of a mandatory retirement age contributes to "graying" of this occupation. The median age of American full professors (in 2006) was around 55 years. Very few people attain this position before the age of 40. The annual salary of full professors averages at $99,000, although less so at non-doctoral institutions, and more so at private doctoral institutions (not including side income from grants and consulting, which can be substantial in some fields); in addition, institutions in major cities or high cost of living areas will pay higher salaries. Full professors earn on average about 70% more than assistant professors in the same institution.”

So I suspect that, as we both have noted, a reduction of salary to $43,500 once someone’s funding lapses (which could easily happen to anyone in todays climate and political chaos in our government) would be devastating to both the research and teaching components of the university.

But as my mother always reminded me, if you can’t be part of the solution don’t be part of the problem. Several potential avenues that either are or could be employed to address this problem include:

- Collaborative research projects. As we all know this is almost a necessity in todays funding environment. As I have mentioned previously, Dr. Evers has done a fairly good job of formulating these group interests that fosters collaborative studies in the areas of cancer research. More of this in other research areas and strong encouragement by department Chairs to get struggling researchers into these programs would be helpful.

- Find a realistic avenue for bridge funding. I remember when I was working at the university bridge funding was pretty much a joke. The amount wasn’t enough to even continue with the ongoing work, let alone start into a new area. I know our former EVPHA considered it the researcher’s job to obtain endowments, but perhaps some of our new senior administrators might think about attempting to identify and solicit donors willing to contribute to an endowment that could be used to bridge fund struggling researchers. In addition, perhaps faculty might recognize the potential importance bridge funding might play in their future and rather than using these laundered salary reimbursement dollars as Wethington award bonuses, use the funds to develop a bridge funding vehicle.

- Then there is the caveat that often occurs when someone is struggling with funding, that being they are loaded down with teaching and other duties. I think if a struggling researcher is really earnest about resurrecting their research they should be given time to do it and any help available. This of course is primarily the Chairs job.

- Finally there are those that, for whatever reason, age, unfundable research, etc. who simply can’t or don’t have the desire to compete. Get them teaching more and therefore earning their salary through that vehicle.

I realize these ideas are not new and many are ongoing, but I only present them because I can’t believe a mandate that reduces faculty salaries when they lose research funding is any answer to the problem of unfunded basic scientists.

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Super Mole
3/16/2018 03:34:01 am

Yes, the median income for basic sciences professors is probably in the ~$150K range- my point is that at other top 20 public research universities only about $50K (~33%) of this is guaranteed by the institution. Even UK's standard offer for incoming faculty at the associate professor level and above only now guarantees support for 70% of the salary. Yes, all of your points about needing to create an environment that supports collaborative research so that faculty can sustain these levels of salary recovery from grants is necessary if you are going to have these expectations. Yes, also endowments would help but again at more competitive institutions an endowment that generated lets say $100K of salary support a year would be a big deal. At UK if you want >$100K/year of institutional salary support you can get that just by being tenured and not having any grant support.

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Dan Noonan
3/16/2018 12:44:54 pm

Thanks again for the comment Super Mole. You may be right, but this approach to faculty salaries for academic research scientists must be pretty new, because I have never heard of it. I have heard of 9-month salaries and the option to fund the remaining 3 months through grants, or in private institutions like say Vanderbilt or institutions with separate “research institutes” requiring researchers to eventually fund all of their salary through grants. Unless I am misunderstanding what you are saying, this concept seems rather illogical to me. The statistics I present above for professor salaries are for all faculty. With that in mind, what you appear to be suggesting here is that some basic sciences professor without a grant teaching lets say biochemistry would be making $50,000/yr. while some other professor teaching lets say Political Science and of course not having a research grant, is making $99,000/yr. I guess what I am saying here is that at the University of Kentucky, as it is in probably all of the top 20 universities, we have thousands of faculty members without grants making this $100K salary figure. So what again is the purpose of targeting basic sciences faculty members that have no grant but do teach?

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Super Mole
3/16/2018 02:12:50 pm

I think we're getting a bit off topic but you could look here to get an idea about how a flexible compensation plan with a base component and a performance/incentive component works

http://medfaculty.pitt.edu/compensation-and-incentive-plans

This sort of thing is now pretty standard for basic sciences faculty at public university medical centers.

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Dan Noonan
3/17/2018 04:44:02 am

Thanks again for the comment Super Mole. You are correct; we are a bit off topic, but a worthy issue nonetheless. In looking over the sight you posted, it would appear to me that they are not using the punishing approach to unfunded faculty, but rather the reward (incentive/bonus) approach to those that are. We already have that here with the Wethington Award system (or whatever they are calling it now) predicated primarily upon the salary reimbursement dollars brought in by a researcher. This is somewhat similar to the physician RVU bonus system. We have debated this reward system on previous blog posts so I will simply leave it at that.

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Felix Leiter
3/17/2018 06:35:25 am

So thanks for including the PDFs at the beginning of this post that give 2 sides of the story - Kearney's and UK's. I must say that I was expecting more regarding Karpf's threat to Kearney when Kearney brought up the misuse of KMSF funds.

Basically Kearney said we need to investigate and Karpf said "If you don't like it here, you can leave." And somebody else said "Did you just threaten him?" The Kearney case leaves it there (why?) but the UK case said that Karpf responded "No."

I'm sorry, but if that is all Kearney has, I'm not sure that's much of a case. Yes, it could be read as a threat, but could also be read as a "Why are you complaining?" If I went to my boss and complained about the dirty bathrooms (a big problem I might add), he might respond "Why don't you just leave?" Of course, it could be said in a joking matter, and it would be quite inappropriate to say that if I was bringing up a criminal matter. But just because Karpf was being an ass (he likely was) and inappropriate, does not mean Kearney's lawsuit is justified.

After hearing so much about this threat, what was actually said is a big let-down.

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Dan Noonan
3/17/2018 11:58:56 am

Thanks for the comment Felix. Well I think there are a few other things that support the contention that this is a viable Whistleblower/retaliation case.
- To begin with there was a special session of the Faculty Council ordered by Dr. Karpf and General Council Thro and convened to discuss a “legal matter” with reference to earlier discussions lead by Dr. Kearney and others concerning the mystery Practice Plan Committee and possible mismanagement of KMSF funds.
- Then at this meeting, according to multiple witnesses, following Dr. Kearney’s suggestion of an audit of KMSF finances, there was Dr. Karpf pointing his finger at Dr. Kearney and in a raised voice stating: “If you don’t like it here you can leave”.
- Then there was General Council Thro telling the Faculty Council at this same meeting that the Practice Plan Committee was none of their business.
- Then 4 months later there was the anonymous student complaint about a lecture that nobody can validate upon listening to the recorded lecture.
- Then a month after that there was the patient’s complaint that was aired by the mother on Facebook and used by the Chief Medical Officer as a premise for convening the MSEC trials that turned out to be essentially KMSF employees, the Dean and the University Lawyers removing Dr. Kearney from the hospital and placing him on gag order.
- Then there was the University’s General Council offering Dr. Kearney a deal and threatening him with: “take the deal or I will ruin your career”.

I might agree that any one of these things by itself does not support much of a case for retaliation, but cumulatively they strongly suggest these actions to silence Dr. Kearney go way beyond a putative history of bad behavior. Especially since they signed off on this behavior, essentially condoning it for 25 years. Last but not least, it appears that the judge must also feel that the case has some merit in that he has defied the all powerful University and has twice dismissed the University’s lawyer’s attempts to have the case dismissed.

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Super Mole
3/17/2018 08:48:33 am

I don;'t think you read the Pitt information in detail.- they have a base salary and they have mechanisms in place to reduce salaries with a goal of having 75% of non clinical faculty salaries supported by grants. Many other public state universities have similar policies.

Procedure for reduction of tenured faculty salaries
in the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
June 2017

http://medfaculty.pitt.edu/sites/default/files/SOM%20Procedure%20for%20reduction%20of%20tenured%20faculty%20salaries%20%20June%202017%20with%20timeline.pdf

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Dan Noonan
3/17/2018 12:03:31 pm

Thanks again for the comment Super Mole. Here again, I do not see anything constructive in penalizing a tenured faculty member struggling with funding. In reading this Pitt document over it sounds very nebulous and subjective to me. They place no quantitative value on teaching, research and service, nor do they provide defined time frames for recovery from perceived deficiencies in these areas. In reading it one might envision something similar to the Dr. Kearney situation wherein when they run into someone they personally don’t like they simply convene their “ad hoc subcommittee of the Executive Committee” and in the absence of the faculty member define guilt or innocence and penalty.

As stated above, I have to believe it could eventually come back to bite them in the you know where when it comes around to recruiting. I suspect this facet of their employment contract is not discussed with candidates and is either buried or not really spelled out in their contract. I remember way back when interviewing at Ohio State and after chatting with a few somewhat disenchanted faculty members, I chose not to accept their offer simply because of their complaints. My response to the department Chair when asked why I chose not to accept their offer, was that “he should be more selective when he set up candidate interviews”.

The bottom line for me is that we are not a top 20 public university. In actuality according to this site:

https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/top-public

we sit at #63. With that in mind I do not think we will be moving up this ladder much with a policy that punishes tenured faculty members who might be struggling with their research but are still being highly productive with their teaching and service.

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Super mole
3/18/2018 05:37:24 am

Unfortunately some people in charge of things at uk think that adopting the policies of higher ranked institutions might free up resources to recruit higher quality faculty who can teach and see patients and do research (or at least do two of these) at the same time. Eventually things will get so bad financially that the UKHC and kmsf funds transfer to the com decreases to the point that something has to be done but until then some people can enjoy their academic freedom to get paid for not doing very much.

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Dan Noonan
3/18/2018 10:02:50 am

Thanks again for the comment Super Mole. I would agree that there are some who may abuse the privilege of tenure, but I still believe that tenure is a good thing. I also know that with increase seniority as a faculty member, comes a greater number of distractions that can directly impact your progress as a researcher. I know during my tenure period, beyond the standard teaching and grant research, I served as: the departments Director of Graduate Studies, Course Director for 4 different courses, Director for the Medical Center’s IBS program, service on the Medical Center Research Advisory Committee, 2 terms on the University Graduate Council, service on the University Safety Committee, service on the University Senate, service on the University Senate Research Advisory Committee, 2 terms on the College of Medicine Faculty Council, service on the University Student Appeals Committee, etc., etc. These are merely the ones I can think of and don’t include the many department recruiting and other organizational committees. It also doesn’t include distractions like study sections and journal boards. The point being, the more senior and successful a faculty member becomes the greater the service workload that can impact ones fundability.

Perhaps related to this “what to do with unfunded senior faculty conundrum” I am not opposed to implementing defined retirement ages. Something like 70 years old with the caveat that funded faculty can remain as emeritus faculty through their funding period, receiving salary via grant reimbursement. If necessary, course instructors might also be retained beyond this retirement age working simply under yearly contracts. This, to me at least, sounds more constructive than selectively reducing salaries of teaching/research faculty once they lose their grant funding.

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Lrh
3/18/2018 01:46:49 pm

I bet the kearney case judge is looking forward to a ride to Atlanta on the UKHC private jet and some court side sweet sixteen tickets!

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Dan Noonan
3/18/2018 03:01:31 pm

Thanks for the comment Lrh. I surely hope not or if he is it's because he is going there to root for UNBC or Kansas State.

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LDT
3/19/2018 03:18:25 pm

Well however this thing turns out tomorrow, I would personally like to thank Kearney for standing up to this abuse of authority and at the same time depleting the hospital of some very arrogant and over paid administrators. With Karpf, DeBeer, Boulange, Zwisch ect. running for cover (as they should) and the new EVPHA cleaning house in KMSF, maybe we can eventually obtain the honesty and transparency we so desperately need. It is a bit unfortunate that it took this long to get here. So again, thanks Kearney for helping to both expose the corruption and fight this battle for us.

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Dan Noonan
3/19/2018 05:40:51 pm

Thanks for the comment LDT. I am with you on that one,

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Super Mole
3/20/2018 02:04:59 pm

So what happened??

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