Censorship of University Faculty

5/26/2018

"Once again, for those new to this blog site, at present there are 52 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/

HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND TO ALL
AND A SPECIAL THANKS TO THOSE WHO HAVE OR ARE SERVING IN THE MILITARY

Below I provide an interesting recent University email discussion of the Buck Ryan incident. This discussion is between a retired University of Kentucky professor, Michael Kennedy, and the University of Kentucky General Counsel, Professor/Adjunct Instructor William Thro. This email discussion was shared with faculty colleagues by Professor Davy Jones. This is worth reading because it clearly illustrates the lengths the University of Kentucky administration and its lawyers are willing to go to silence faculty and manipulate due process.

From: "Jones, Davy" <djones@uky.edu>
Date: May 25, 2018 at 3:36:07 PM EDT
Subject: University Environment of Faculty Communication

Dear University Faculty Colleagues,

We feel that it is very important to forward to you the information below from former Faculty Trustee Michael Kennedy, concerning the current UK General Counsel Bill Thro's statement that appears intended to limit access of the current Faculty Trustees Lee Blonder and Robert Grossman to input from faculty constituents on an important University matter.

As former Faculty Trustees ourselves, we note that every Board of Trustees meeting contains recommendations of the President's viewpoint on matters for final voting action of the Board, including terminal reappointment, promotion, tenure, resignation, etc. of faculty and administrators. In our experience, former UK General Counsels never described to Faculty Trustees that it was inappropriate for Faculty Trustees to read communications from our faculty constituents on any of these matters, or any University matter. Indeed, the free flow of communications between faculty trustees and their constituents would seem to be critical to these representatives doing their business in an informed and democratic manner.

We share the concern of Michael Kennedy regarding the apparent effort of UK General Counsel Bill Thro to limit the access of Faculty Trustees to the opinions of our University Faculty.

Davy Jones, Former Faculty Trustee (2003-2004 )
Ernie Yanarella, Former Faculty Trustee (2006-2010)
John Wilson, Former Faculty Trustee (2011-2016)

cc: UK Board of Trustees

From: Kennedy, Michael
Sent: Friday, May 25, 2018 10:32 AM
To: Thro, William
Cc: Blonder, Lee; Grossman, Robert; Brion, Gail; Bird-Pollan, Jennifer; Cross, Al; Osterhage, Jennifer; McCormick, Katherine; Schroeder, Margaret; Spear, Brett; Tagavi, Kaveh; Wood, C; Jones, Davy; President, University of Kentucky; Provost, University of Kentucky; Lauersdorf, Mark; Jackson, Brian A; Minier, Jenny; Isaacs, Steven G; Harders, Faith; Hatton-Kolpek, Jimmi; Marshall, Robert C; McKenzie, Robert; Butler, Karen; Ruble, Lisa; Silverstein, David; Smith, Gregory; Williamson, Thomas; Adams, Katherine; Deaton, Marcy; Iler, Cliff; Luna, Shea; Stamper, Shannan
Subject: RE: Your communications with the President and Faculty Trustees concerning Faculty Termination Proceegins
Dear Mr. Thro:
I received the following email from you.

From: William Thro--UK <William.Thro@uky.edu>
Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2018 11:27 AM
To: Kennedy, Michael <kennedy@uky.edu>
Cc: Blonder, Lee <lxblond@uky.edu>; Grossman, Robert <robert.grossman@uky.edu>
Subject: Your communications with the President and Faculty Trustees concerning Faculty Termination Proceegins (sic)
Dear Dr. Kennedy,

Recently, you sent communications to the President and the Faculty Trustees concerning the Faculty Termination proceedings against Professor Ryan.

Because the Senate Advisory Committee on Privlege (sic) and Tenure will be sending a recommendation to the President, the President will not be reviewing or responding to your e-mails.

Similarly, because this matter may eventually come before the Board of Trustees, it is inappropriate for Trustee Blonder or Trusee (sic) Grossman to review or respond to your e-mails.

Thank you

William E. Thro
General Counsel
University of Kentucky

I will have no complaint if President Capilouto does not respond to my email. If he chooses not to review my email (or if someone blocks him from seeing it) that will likely be to his great disadvantage in terms of his relationship with the faculty, and his presidency in general. The Ryan matter – attempting to terminate the appointment of a respected, effective, tenured professor on very flimsy grounds, with the concomitant chilling effect on academic freedom – is probably the most explosive internal issue to come before this university in many years.

Regarding your suggestion that it would be “inappropriate” for our elected faculty trustees to “review” my email: That is doubtless the most ignorant statement I have ever seen from a UK official in my five plus decades at the University. And I use the term “ignorant” as an accurate descriptor, not as an insult.

Ignorant: You apparently do not understand the function of an elected faculty trustee. You are suggesting that the faculty trustees, who are intended by Kentucky law, as part of their functions, to serve as an information conduit between the faculty and the Board, should be prevented from hearing faculty opinions? Seriously? Would you like to attempt to defend your statement by citing some law or regulation? You don’t seem to know why the KRS authorize elected faculty trustees. You are seemingly not aware that the faculty make up the constituency of said trustees, and that they encourage opinion and feedback from other faculty.

Having worked (in my time on the UK Board, the Senate Council, the Senate, and the AAUP) with excellent and effective UK General Counsels, I find your performance, in this instance and in others I have been made aware of, shockingly inept.

Most sincerely,
Michael Kennedy
Assoc. Prof. Emeritus
Treasurer, Kentucky State Conference of the
American Association of University Professors (AAUP)
Member, UK Senate; President, UK Assoc. of Emeriti Faculty
kennedy@uky.edu
https://geography.as.uky.edu/users/kennedy

P.S. For any future correspondence my title is “Prof.” not “Dr.”.
Copies: Faculty Trustees; University Senate Council; Committee on Privilege and Tenure; UK President, UK Provost, UK Legal Staff

So there you have it. Just another reflection of the total disregard the University administration and its lawyers have towards faculty and due process. As we have noted throughout the blog, it is perhaps the arrogance of the General Counsel that has brought us here, including his threat of 'take the deal or I will ruin your career' to Dr. Kearney, the many lawsuits initiated by his office to prevent access to what KMSF is doing with the hospital revenue, the lawsuits against the State's Attorney General's office and the school newspaper over open records requests, etc, etc. Even his propensity to misrepresent himself to the public by declaring himself a College of Law "Professor" rather than the title of "Adjunct Instructor" that he truly is suggests that this is someone more than willing to manipulate the truth. I hate to even think of the time, treasure and talent he has cost the University.

27 Comments

Rhymenocerous

6/2/2018 07:25:44 am

Can you post kennedy’s emails to capilouto and the current trustees?
What about the latest rock bottom engagement scores?
How about the new DOE policies?

Dan Noonan

6/2/2018 12:37:23 pm

Thanks for the comment Rhymenocerous. These all sound like worthwhile blog items, but unfortunately I do not have any of that information. If some blog reader out there happens to have any of this stuff and would be willing to anonymously share it I would be happy to post it. Simply either email me directly (dnoonan48@gmail.com) or anonymously post it to the blog.

Hiphopopotamus

6/2/2018 02:57:04 pm

https://med.uky.edu/sites/default/files/DOE_COM_Instructions%205-30-18.pdf

The DOE stuff is here.

Presumably someone like Davy Jones or of course Kennedy himself have the emails.

Not sure about the (dis) engagement data but you know its got to be bad.

6/2/2018 05:36:19 pm

Thanks Hiphopoptamus for the comment. Are we getting creative with these names or what. I like it. Thanks also for this URL. It will take me a bit of time to digest this (it's that aging and slow reading thingy.... or maybe it's just the golf) but I should be able to muddle through it. Let's leave it at: "to be continued". But again thanks for supplying it.

6/5/2018 11:25:13 am

I finally finished reading through the above 20-page treatise on how to calculate ones College of Medicine DOE. Exciting stuff. I think the argument could be made that calculating and filling out ones DOE could account for maybe up to 50% of ones DOE. This almost looks like something PricewaterhouseCooper might have come up with. Itemizing what one has been doing or will be doing every minute of the day in a university professorship job is pretty unrealistic. Add to this the assumed 40-hour workweek and it becomes absurd. When I was at the university most, if not all, of the professors I worked with rarely worked 40-hour workweeks, and weekends were when many of us got the most work done. That of course was because the daily onslaught of interruptions and meetings (most of which you are not permitted to factor into this DOE) were no longer a factor. As I remember it, DOEs use to be simply overviewing the time and effort being spent in teaching, research and service. Now it appears you need is a calculator, and of course “approval by the Chair and Dean” to know how much time you are allowed to spend doing these things. It is really interesting to see how by placing workload into some mathematical formula, they are, without really stating it, basically stipulating how much time one is allowed to report for the various subcategories in these teaching, research and service functions.

As we have discussed in previous comment sections, DOEs became controversial when Dr. deBeer and Dr. Karpf were fund raising for the new hospital. The approach was to increase physician generated revenue (RVUs) by minimizing DOE credit (and to a certain extent bonus figures) for teaching. On the basic sciences side a similar approach was used in an effort to generate an avenue for reducing the number of unfunded tenured faculty. I am not sure this isn’t simply an extension of that.

6/7/2018 06:15:19 am

The questions I have with respect to this DOE are, is it going to be like a grade school mathematics glass where you have to show your calculations, and if not, how many people do you think will actually attempt to do these calculations?

With respect to this Legal Office “official” Thro email, I know some fifth graders who do a better job of proofreading their emails. I am surprised he didn’t include any OMGs or LOLs.

6/7/2018 06:52:16 am

Thanks for the comment MK. The only good thing I see in this DOE instruction manual is the word "draft".

I agree, it is rather sad that the General Counsel for the University of Kentucky can't take the time to proofread, or have someone in his office proofread, official email documents he is sending out, especially those that many might interpret to be an abuse of authority.

`Gainey Press

6/6/2018 05:50:44 pm

The recent PG faculty engagement survey was in the tank again. The administration is trying to put lipstick on this PIG claiming some increases in selected areas. These data are highly sanitized and not for public consumption. Administration is saying the data set is confidential. I call BS on that one! They just don't want anybody seeing these data. They have a apparently passed out an 'executive summary' to each Dept/Div Chair to share with his/her faculty. You will only see your Dept/Div data. So a surgeon won't see cardiology, cardiology won't see peds, etc. I believe this is called divide and conquer or better yet, divide and deceive.

I am going to give Jim Geddes a pat on the back for the DOE modifications. What a thankless job. The new DOE levels the playing field. Geddes clearly states that the DOE is merely a guideline, not a hard and fast rule document. We shall see.

6/7/2018 06:39:04 am

Thanks for the comment Gainey Press. I think it is pretty clear that if they wish to suppress or limit the faculty engagement results of this survey then these results can’t be anything but negative, and that is of no real surprise. It all feeds back into this senior administration perspective that the buildings are far more important than the people working in them. I mean what else could you expect when your only approach to dealing with faculty issues is to threaten and file lawsuits.

Felix Leiter

6/7/2018 06:36:23 pm

This comment from Gainey Press is not accurate. I have seen a detailed report from my own division which included the score for several individual questions. However, I also saw the summary score for every department in the hospital, including medicine, pediatrics, and surgery. While I can't speak for other divisions/departments, I most certainly saw and have the handouts that show the overall score (alignment and engagement) for every major area at UK healthcare.

And yes, surgery scored the worst.

6/8/2018 02:21:06 am

Thanks for your comment Felix. Hopefully they will make "all" of this information (good and bad) available to the public (or minimally to all of the employees) at this public university and hospital. It would be even better if they also included an action plan for resolving perceived deficiencies.

Armchair kearney fan

6/15/2018 02:26:30 pm

So what was the outcome of the motion to dismiss hearing?

6/16/2018 08:46:58 am

Thanks for the inquiry Armchair. Unfortunately I have yet to receive any information as to the outcome of this hearing. Maybe others out there have and will contribute.

AKF

6/22/2018 11:07:28 am

Just heard that Joe Ionoco is leaving surgery abruptly under mysterious circumstances. Anyone have any insights into what might be going on here?

Da Scooop

6/22/2018 01:50:31 pm

Here is some breaking news for the blog watchers!

The Board Healthcare Retreat was held yesterday. Must give credit to the administration for the infomercial. Pretty easy to bamboozle Board members. That included an uber effort to whitewash the absolutely horrible P-G surgery results. Zwisch's Department of Surgery was the worst of the worst. Strong effort Jay. Why do you still have a job?

Arguments were heard in the Kearney case by Judge Ernesto Scorsone on Friday, June 15. No decision on the case was made. He wanted more time to deliberate. Hopefully an answer soon.

Here is the big news. At yesterday's retreat, faculty trustee Lee Blonder PhD ask Mr. Craig Collins if UKHealthcare and KMSF were still using the Kentucky revenue cabinet to collect bad debt. He answered yes. UK attorney's have authorized UK and KMSF to continue this practice while it is reviewed by the Kentucky appeals court. As you will recall, that circuit court Judge James Ishmael ruled that UK and KMSF must stop this practice. He retired shortly thereafter and UK appealed his decision.

Well well, attorney Douglas Richards has filed a 50 million dollar class action suit in the Franklin County Circuit court against the Kentucky Revenue Cabinet and UK! Wow. Mr. Thro needs to be fired!

6/23/2018 06:15:34 am

Thanks AKF and Da Scoop for the comments and information. I know nothing about the departure of Dr. Ionoco, but others have mentioned that he has a history. It would be interesting to know if his departure included one of those infamous "NDAs" (we won't tell if you don't tell) that General Counsel Thro loves to leverage with.

Interesting news about the University Hospital and especially KMSF (which of course the University is claiming is independent from said University) tapping into a state agency to collect hospital/KMSF debt. All the more reason that the University needs to accept the obvious truth that KMSF is a part of the University Hospital and therefore open to a detailed public audit of what it has been doing with this public University Hospital revenue over the past ten years. Having said that, I think the logic behind this battle to keep this from happening is slowly surfacing. We had Hazard Cardiology costing 5 million and now a 50 million dollar lawsuit pending on this matter, so who knows what else might surface in this audit. So why not spend a few million to sue the state's Attorney General, the school newspaper and anyone else (e.g. Dr. Kearney) wishing to expose (blow the whistle on) possible money mismanagement practices by the hospital administration/KMSF

Alanis Morissette

6/26/2018 07:15:08 am

Did you know? 🤔

UK is home to the only Level 1 Trauma Center providing care to Central and Eastern Kentucky.

https://uknow.uky.edu/?j=57432&sfmc_sub=122671709&l=16891_HTML&u=1337268&mid=10966798&jb=0

6/26/2018 08:50:54 am

Thanks for the comment Alanis. Yes, I believe most folks visiting this blog are well aware of this fact. The concerns most of us have are, no matter how much hype they want to put into it nor how differently the administration would wish to paint it, this level 1 trauma center ranks nationally near the very bottom of trauma centers with respect to physician satisfaction (Press-Gainey survey) and because of that is losing high quality trauma physicians. Unfortunately the hospital and university administration appear to view the buildings much more important than the physicians occupying them and would rather paint a picture of rectification than actually do anything about it. But I guess when you are willing to spend millions of dollars on a vendetta to ruin the career of one of the trauma center's best surgeons, what else can you expect?

Drain Bamage

6/27/2018 07:40:50 am

Yes, its amazing that the trauma program hasn't fallen apart without Paul Kearney...Someone here suggested that patient care has suffered without Paul Kearney and even raised the possibility that people might have actually died without access to his superlative skills. Does anyone have any data to support this theory?

Bees Wax

6/28/2018 12:34:18 pm

The primary concerns of the UK hospital administration is not being good but rather looking and sounding good. That's why they are doing everything they can to get rid of Kearney. He neither looks good nor sounds good. The fact that he is the best trauma surgeon we have had, is one of the best trauma surgery teachers that we have had and has probably saved more lives in his job than any other surgeon in the department is of no importance to these guys. Thus the horrendous Press-Gainey scores.

Lars Bandeet

6/30/2018 12:41:42 pm

So pleased to see everyone rallying around to support Dr Kearney. He operated on me when I was injured in a freak gardening accident. We need him back now!

Olive D. Cox

7/1/2018 04:23:45 pm

Another grateful Dr Kearney patient here. He operated on me when I had internal injuries from being rear ended on my way back from Pine Knob. It’s shameful what’s been done to Dr Kearney by the university. God bless Dr Kearney and his supporters.

Missingma Dong

7/2/2018 11:33:45 am

Lets not forget Dr Kearney's important role in Surgery on Sunday. I wouldn't be the woman I am today without him. Dr Kearney needs to be back at work ASAP!

7/3/2018 04:04:35 pm

Thanks Drain Bamage, Bees Wax, Lars Bandeet, and Olive Cox for your comments and contributions to the blog. Dr. Kearney’s talent for saving lives has been documented many times both here on the blog as well as on the Facebook page. My own experience with Dr. Kearney’s skills had nothing to do with me but rather a former Chinese graduate student that worked in my lab. He was in a very severe car accident on Rt. 64 in West Virginia. He was taken to the hospital in Huntsville and they did what superficial treatment their expertise and facilities allowed, and then sent him on by ambulance to UK Hospital. The only contact information they could find on him was my name and number. The Huntington trauma doctor contacting me, thinking I was a physician, explained in detail his many injuries and stated that “if he makes to UK alive I would give him at best a 10% chance of survival.” I visited him every day during that first two weeks in intensive care and saw first hand the miracle of how Dr. Kearney orchestrated both the survival and eventual treatment of his many wounds. Dr. Kearney even helped in getting this student’s mother over from China (no small matter back in the 1990s). Finally, there was the extensive rehab that Dr. Kearney helped get comped over at Cardinal Hill. Bottom line being, because of Dr. Kearney’s skills, today this young man is a Biotech company executive.

It was in a 2016 letter to Dr. Capilouto (see blog post 2/25/2016: “Presidential Clarifications”) that I made the statement that I felt that this vendetta organized to remove Dr. Kearney could ultimately be impacting both patient care and the lives of trauma patients. Of course Dr. Capilouto’s cowardly response to this email was to interpret this as a threat and to send it over to his boss, Bill Thro, in hopes that they could maybe twist the statement into some legally threating matter. With that response from Dr. Capilouto I unfortunately lost all respect for this university president.

It truly is sad that this university administration would spend millions of dollars to orchestrate the removal of a physician faculty member that is highly respected by the majority of faculty, staff and students of the College and hospital. This is clear from not only the Press-Ganey survey, but also his recent election to the University Senate, his recent election to the College of Medicine Faculty Council, his teaching awards, the Resident Student awards and even these Facebook and blog sites. All of these extreme measures that are being taken to get rid of/silence Dr. Kearney, along with the recent departure of a number of the key instigators of this vendetta, truly do support the contention that these administrators and lawyers view Dr. Kearney as some form of threat. For me, that brings everything back to the whistleblower lawsuit.

JTC

7/5/2018 04:50:38 pm

Interesting blog. So let me get this straight. You have a top of the line trauma surgeon loosing his patient privileges, losing his tenured professorship privileges, being kicked off the campus, not permitted to converse with hospital personnel and locked out of his office all predicated upon the Facebook contention of a mother who states her drugged up son claims this trauma surgeon used insulting language while he resisted measures being implemented to save his life.

Then, in spite of the fact that those in the trauma ward did not validate these claims, the CMO and hospital EVPHA (both of whom appear to have alternative personal reasons to want this individual gone) subsequently put together a committee of physicians that tried this individual in his absence or the absence of any representative on his behalf, ultimately upholding a majority of the previous sentence implemented by the CMO and EVPHA.

Finally the Board of Trustees reversed the decisions made by this committee that pertained his work as a university professor, and the coup de grace being the university president, in defiance of the Board, reinstated major restrictions on this faculty member’s job as a university professor.

Unbelievable. I actually was researching this place for my residency work when I ran across this site. Sounds more like gulag than a hospital.

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Censorship of University Faculty

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