Dr. Kearney Case Update

3/21/2018

"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/

HAPPY EASTER TO ALL

This will be a short one. As discussed in the previous post and the comment section of that post, yesterday the University's motion to have Dr. Kearney's case dismissed went before a newly appointed judge, Judge Reynolds. The outcome of that was, this new judge simply kicked the can down the road. After lengthy arguments on both sides, Judge Reynolds informs everyone that "his wife is a recent hire at UK Gill Heart Institute”. He offered to recuse himself because of this conflict of interest. He then asked both sides to prepare an opinion on their arguments in 30 days and he will rule if he is still on the case. Dr. Kearney’s attorney has until Tuesday to file a motion to have him removed from the case. Unfortunately this will probably relegate him to another “Big Blue Judge" from Fayette Circuit Court. Like I said, this is really a David vs. Goliath battle.

The real question here is: “if Judge Reynolds knew he had a conflict when the case was assigned, why did he wait until the date of the court hearing to make that known?” Makes you wonder where this judge received his law degree? Let’s see, okay there it is:

http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/counties/fayette-county/article196262069.html

“Reynolds, also a graduate of UK’s law school, has spent the past 18 years handling personal injury, civil litigation, criminal defense, family law, probate and personal injury cases.”

The other caveat in this fiasco is that Judge Reynolds is only temporarily appointed to this circuit judge position until elections in November. Talk about a corruptible legal system.

60 Comments

3/21/2018 04:21:09 am

Incredible! Talk about a conflict of interest. You’re telling me that this UK law school graduate whose wife is essentially being paid through KMSF actually accepted a case that is in essence UK filing for the dismissal of a case against them that is a lawsuit claiming retaliation by UK following exposure of money mismanagement by KMSF. It just don’t get much more corrupt than that folks. I’m a thinkin that Lrh was spot on in the comment that this judge will be enjoying box seats in Atlanta for the sweet sixteen games.

Dan Noonan

3/21/2018 05:03:23 am

Thanks for the comment JB. That is what it appears to be. I am amazed that this judge would not automatically recuse himself from the case. Just the perception of conflict of interest should have warranted it. This case in all fairness should probably be handled somewhere far away from Fayette County, simply because of the involvement of UK and the potential influence that UK and UKHC has on everything and everybody in this area.

Billy

3/22/2018 04:30:41 am

At first I thought it curious that these lawyers for the university have not made any attempt to negotiate a settlement in this Kearney matter, but then, as noted in the Facebook post, why negotiate when you can milk the university and taxpayers for all those billable hours. With the anti up to three lawyers and most probably rising, this Kearney vendetta has to be approaching the seven-figure mark for the university. Add to that the cost in public image, hospital morale, retention, and recruitment and the costs become enormous. Oh well, you can probably predict they will either raise tuition again, launder UKHC revenue through KMSF or launder grant indirects to pay for it. I put all of this on Capilouto and the Board of Trustees. They have the authority to resolve this and choose not to.

3/22/2018 05:03:00 am

Thanks for the comment Billy. I would tend to agree, the cost of this protracted attempt to destroy Dr. Kearney’s career and kick him out of the University is gigantic, goes way beyond dollars and cents and is only getting larger. I think we can blame the University’s General Council, in part, for letting it get this far. His office’s contributions to the kangaroo court proceedings and his threatening approach to negotiating a resolution to the Dr. Kearney verdict by this court, basically brought us to where we are now.

I tend to believe that Dr. Capilouto was more or less a puppet of the General Council’s approach to resolving this situation. I can only guess that it was at the General Council’s advice that Dr. Capilouto chose to defy several aspects of the Board of Trustee’s edict reinstating Dr. Kearney’s tenured professor rites. But then again, I am a bit disappointed in the Board in that they let the University President/General Council dictate to them what they are authorized to do in governing this University.

Super Mole

3/22/2018 09:36:57 am

The paranoia/conspiracy theorising is intensifying. Maybe this whole thing needs to be handled like an organized crime trial? At a minimum Kearney should hold out for a judge who is a UofL or Tennessee grad/fan ideally with close family members who work for Central Baptist..

Regarding the use of outside lawyers I assume this is because they are employment law experts and used to arguing cases in Fayette Circuit Court. I also expect that whatever their arrangements are with UK they involve a negotiated upper limit for the costs, even if they do bill at an hourly rate. They might even be incentivized to get the case dismissed. Or maybe they want the motion to dismiss to fails so it will go to trial to make even more money?

Also I am not convinced about your argument that UK are scared of this going to trial. I think that they can argue Kearney has a motive to file the whistleblower suit because he knows that he can't challenge the hospital credentialing process in court. I also think that the whistleblower case has to be decided on the basis of what he actually knew or disclosed at the time he was supposedly retaliated against. I am not sure that a vague affidavit from a disgruntled former employee/alcoholic will carry much weight. Nor will bringing up issues that have arisen in the intervening 3 years, none of which have resulted in criminal or civil liability for UKHC or KMSF and none of which Kearney could have reasonably known anything about. And also Kearney's surgical skills and high regard in the community are not really relevant either (aside from being used against him to argue that he thought because of this he could get away with bad behavior) Of course I know there are other points of view about this.

Maybe one of these sealed Qui Tam suits will drop? Or maybe there aren't any of these cooking?

Anyway, the only thing we can all agree on is that this will go on and on and I bet your blog is still active this time next year.

3/22/2018 01:58:10 pm

Thanks again for your comment and opinions Super Mole. Although some may not find it odd that a judge with obvious conflicts of interest waits through 2-3 hours of oral arguments by University lawyers before he reports those conflicts and recuses himself from the case, I personally think it very odd. He either had never read up on the case, had nothing else scheduled for the day, enjoys the bantering of lawyers or had some other personal agenda.

With regards to the outside lawyers, I have to think that the inside lawyers activities being germane to Dr. Kearney’s case may also have played a role in this decision to bring in help from the outside. As to how much they are being paid it’s anybody’s guess. I do recollect UK paying a single lawyer from DC a measly million dollars to handle that Hazard fiasco, so that number doesn’t appear extravagant for 3 specialist lawyers and the amount of time and number of depositions involved in this case.

I don’t know about UK being “scared” of this going to trial, but I have to believe they would prefer that it didn’t. In spite of them making it to the sweet sixteen, the University has had to deal with its share of negative publicity in the past couple of years with their open records lawsuits, sexual harassment controversies, their lawsuits against the State’s Attorney Generals Office, their lawsuits against the school newspaper, their aforementioned lawsuit dealing with Hazard Cardiology, etc. The Dr. Kearney case appears to have a very large following, it also has somewhat gone national, and it can be speculated that it is a festering sore for both the hospital and the University. I would think that the last thing the University would really want is a protracted David vs. Goliath trial.

Finally, I will agree with you that it is a good possibility that this will go on and on. Billable hours is how lawyers make their money.

Lrh

3/23/2018 06:18:02 am

Perhaps Judge Reynolds bracket has been busted and he's getting sick of disappointing one and done players so it would be safe for him to rule on the case?

Less than Super Mole

3/22/2018 01:53:34 pm

Super Mole needs to bone up on Kentucky Whistleblower Law. Kearney only has to prove that his whistleblowing is a contributing factor to the disciplinary action not the 'sole' cause. More importantly, criminal behavior does not need to be identified. Known or suspected abuse of authority, regulations, law, and/or financial mismanagement. There is plenty of the latter going around.

3/22/2018 02:10:09 pm

Thanks for the comment Less than. I'm not much into the legal ease of Whistleblowing, but this sounds reasonable to me. If what you are saying is correct, than from simply what we can document happened there appears to be an arguable case.

3/24/2018 04:26:54 am

Thanks. I think the whistleblowing has to be done before the "disciplinary action", not after the fact. Can you point me to some case law in Kentucky or elsewhere where the courts have managed to force a hospital or healthcare system to reverse decisions about credentialing or clinical privileges?

3/24/2018 07:40:43 am

Thanks for the comment Super Mole. As I have noted multiple times, my background is not in law, and for very good reasons. Maybe someone else monitoring this blog might be able to point you in the right direction to research this question.

Super mole

3/28/2018 02:10:07 pm

Still waiting...

Anonymous trauma RN

3/22/2018 08:16:09 pm

I don’t understand how all the cover up presumably more than the bluegrass conspiracy was back in my day . He’s the finest surgeon I’ve worked with and put him back in the or at Uk and confess to what you did fishman

3/23/2018 04:28:41 am

Thanks for the comment Anonymous. I like you and many others hope that the University accepts their responsibility in this miscarriage of justice and reinstates Dr. Kearney. I have never worked with Dr. Kearney but have benefited from his expertise. For me whether they are right or wrong is not the principle issue here. It is the unconstitutional approach they used to destroy Dr. Kearney's career, predicated upon a behavioral issue that they had endorsed for 25 years. If they can get away with this approach to faculty governance with one tenured faculty member then anybody and everybody is open to this prejudicial treatment.

3/27/2018 02:35:15 pm

Mr noonan
I agree . I know the power UK holds over nurses and doctors .. I know the work and bedside manner of dr kearney for years . I also know many of the inside people who also know . We just want to see him back where he belongs . Over trauma surgery saving lives in the OR.

Tip of the iceberg

3/23/2018 10:11:24 am

University faculty alarmed by Kentucky budget language that guts tenure protections
http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article206523269.html

3/23/2018 01:54:37 pm

Thanks for this comment Tip. This is a disturbing article. It appears that our Governor and State Senate care very little about higher education, or as we have seen with the attempts to sabotage teacher’s pensions, education altogether. This paragraph from the article is thought to cover the major concern:

“The Senate version of Kentucky’s budget bill contains language that says university leaders may reduce tenured faculty when programs are modified or eliminated because of budgetary issues. What really alarms them is the last line: “The provisions of this section supersede any and all policies governing the faculty employment approved by a Board of Regents or Board of Trustees.”

So basically what it appears they are saying is that “we the politicians of this state”, not any Board of Reagents or Board of Trustees”, are defining the rules by which the state university faculty are hired and fired. They then go on to endorse Matt Bevin’s proposal to reduce the state’s allocation to universities by another 6.25%. In other words what they appear to be saying is, we are not going to give you enough money to pay your faculty and therefore we are autocratically eliminating tenure so that you can meet our budget reduction by firing your overpaid senior tenured faculty.

I have a strange feeling that some administrators in the College of Medicine might applaud this. I mean what a great way to get rid of Dr. Kearney and all of those tenured unfunded overpaid basic scientists who do nothing but teach. Come to think of it, it’s also a great avenue for getting rid of practically any faculty member they don’t like.

But again, I can think of other avenues for saving money in the College of Medicine. Of course my favorite is found at this College of Medicine site: https://med.uky.edu/college-leadership. It lists 35 administrators in the College of Medicine with the word Dean in their title, and as I have previously noted, the contact information for 24 of these is someone other than themselves, meaning they have paid employees to assist them in their work. Some of the highest paid in this group neither teach, do research or see patients. Then there is the secrets of KMSF and all of that hospital revenue that very few really know definitively where it is going and what it is being used for.

But fear not, we always have our hero “Jay Blanton”:

University of Kentucky spokesman Jay Blanton said UK’s governing regulations outline a process for the removal of tenured and non-tenured faculty in a way that ensures constitutional due process. “Our intent is to continue to abide by that regulatory framework,” he said.

Yeh, we have observed firsthand this “due process” in the Dr. Kearney vendetta.

3/24/2018 04:20:58 am

I think you have to recognize that all faculty are not the same and you have to balance job security for individual faculty with the potential harm this can to to the common good of the institution and the people it serves. The most obvious issue here is what happens when faculty are hired to do research but don't manage to sustain viable extramurally funded research programs. Its disingenuous to argue that faculty who are hired to teach or who can pursue their scholarship without a need for resources are the same as faculty who were hired to do research and can't do research without securing extramural support.

I have seen data generated by the faculty council showing that about two thirds of the basic sciences faculty at UK have either no research support or minimal support. The unfunded salaries and benefits associated with this are in excess of ~$10 million/year. There is not even close to enough teaching or administration to fully occupy the time of these ~150 people. So effectively tenure just provides job security for people who are harming the institution and the citizens of the state who desperately need and deserve the benefits of a first rate research university.

Yes, your points about the deanlet expansion and use of hospital revenues for possibly questionable purposes are all valid but why do you think that wasting this money on salaries for faculty who are not doing the work they were hired to do is any better than spending it on other things that you don't like and also don't think help the university?

I am not surprised but this development and I would not be at all surprised if the UK administration were not involved in it or consulted. As a businessman Provost Blackwell is likely to understand the concept of linking compensation and productivity and I also know that when he came to UK from UAB President Capilouto was shocked at the failure to do this effectively for faculty who are expected to be research active in the health sciences colleges.

This debate has been a long time coming and is much needed in my opinion.

3/25/2018 03:51:00 am

Thanks again for your input and comment Super Mole. I fully agree that this debate is an important one. The big problem I have with it is with the parties involved in the debate. A group of politicians defining faculty employment does not appear to be much of a debate. Furthermore, I also fully understand your concerns about tenured and unfunded College of Medicine basic sciences faculty and the drain their salaries are having on the College’s coffers. Having said that, I also have serious concerns with the elimination of tenure. A couple of these include:

1) The associated suggestion that faculty members are nothing more than temporary employees. This opens up a whole can of worms wherein faculty can be removed for just about anything. I am sure naysayers will scoff at that proposition, but as we have seen in this Dr. Kearney affair, some administrators will go to great lengths to drive out highly talented physicians they perceive as impediments to their agenda. Just think what might happen if they had Donald Trump power and could simply say: ”you’re fired” to anyone at any time. I feel pretty certain that Dr. Karpf and Dr. de Beer might have relished that authority, because they appeared to prioritize buildings and funding over everything else.

2) There is also the impact this type of loss of faculty rights would be expected to have on retention and recruitment of talented funded faculty. Some may think that we are a top 20 public university, but we are not. Having served on enough faculty recruitment committees while at UK, I can tell you that it is a highly competitive business, and with the dissolution of tenure we lose a major selling point and a large contingent of talent from a very competitive market. This is especially so with the drain of money from the funding agencies to pay for all of our defense spending and millionaire tax write offs. By the way, salaried researchers using grant direct cost salary reimbursement dollars for the express purpose of monetary rewards over and above their assigned salary might also be viewed as a major drain on this pot of research funding.

I know I would not want to be the one to tell 150 tenured faculty members that they no longer have jobs. Beyond that, many of these unfunded faculty members merit their salary through teaching and the tuition revenue that this teaching brings into the University. The University of Kentucky in-state tuition rate for graduate students is $6,363.00/semester and for out-of-state students it is $15,112.00/semester. For undergraduates it is $6,056/semester for in-state students and $14,118.00/semester for out-of-state students. So lets say you are teaching a Biochemistry 502 class, one of the courses I taught during my days at UK. I taught ¾ of the lectures in this course of over 100 students. This class was a mixture of undergraduate and graduate students. So let’s be generous and say this is 1 of 4 courses these students are taking this semester. Therefore, averaging the tuition out at $10,000.00 x 100 students x 0.25 x .75, I find my contribution to the University in this teaching effort to be $187,500.00. This was almost three times what my salary was at that time. Furthermore, this class had little to no overhead. Beyond that, I also contributed to other graduate courses in both my own department and the Toxicology department. Oh, and I almost forgot “the most important thing”, I also had an NIH funded research grant to work on. Of course all of the funds from this grant were targeted to the completion of the aims of the grant, so technically this revenue could not be considered “University income”. A bit drawn out, but I think you get the idea.

So what are possible solutions to this problem? I discussed several that I could think of in the comment section of the previous post. Beyond them, I know there had been rumors of talks about integrating all of the basic sciences departments into one “Basic Sciences Department” with a single Chair and several divisions that were more directed towards research focus groups as opposed to subject areas. This would hopefully reduce the administrative overhead, also provide a constructive avenue for reducing numbers of basic scientists through balancing hiring with retirement, and I think might also foster more collaborative projects. Unfortunately I think it is complicated by the fact that there is such a diversity of ongoing research in the basic sciences departments of the College of Medicine, making it challenging to identify focus groups. Furthermore, there is the consideration of being able to provide the comprehensive teaching that is required to educate our undergraduate and graduate student populations.

Well see this is what happens when the weather keeps me off of the golf course. As always, we welcome any of your constructive thoughts on the matter.

Minor Rewards

3/26/2018 08:22:41 am

Good to see this old blog is still alive and kicking!
What I heard is that towards the end of last year the college of medicine got quite far along with a plan to put all non clinical faculty onto 9 month salaries. There was a parallel effort with the faculty council to revise the DOE to accommodate this change. Predictably this was not well received. Leadership think that the reduction to 9 months is broadly consistent with the 70% guaranteed salary support commitment provided to new hires. Apparently the then provost, president and counsel were all involved. Then suddenly everything stopped and the whole process has been silent for the first three months of the year. Now along with the developments in the State Senate as of this morning the college of medicine 9 month salary plan is back on the table as a way to accommodate the latest cuts in state support and a need to reduce the UKHC/KMSF funds transfer to the college. You could imagine that the impending possibility that the State will enable a process to terminate tenured faculty could be rather opportune. I could imagine that given the option of basically drawing lots to decide who is going to get terminated or agreeing to salary reductions the non clinical faculty might find the latter option more palatable. With 11.2 months of my effort on sponsored research I’m just planning on opening a beer and enjoying the show. Its been a long time coming but I am finally starting to believe changes are on the way!

3/26/2018 11:10:00 am

Not sure why you are taking this all so personally or why you think that tuition costs are all earmarked for faculty salaries.

Also not sure that your "this will drive people out/hamper faculty recruiting" idea holds water. Research active faculty are leaving UK all the time to go to places with "more aggressive" salary recovery expectations. Just read the resignations section of the BOT minutes. UK also fails to recruit faculty who turn down our 70% guaranteed salary to go to these same kinds of places.

Times have changed.

3/26/2018 01:30:02 pm

Thanks for the comments Minor Rewards and Super Mole. I personally do not have trouble with the concept of 9-month appointments and providing teaching/research faculty with the opportunity to either take 3 months of vacation, work somewhere else for 3 months or pay for an additional 3 months salary out of their grant(s). I also do not mind a person having 12 months of salary taken out of their grant(s), just as long as that person is relieved of any obligations to teach or do service. As I have mentioned before, I am not a big fan of laundering direct cost salary reimbursement dollars to pay researchers a bonus. Along these same lines, through an avenue similar to the one I describe above, maybe the University should also begin to itemize the revenue brought in by teaching, and reward teachers in some compensatory manner. I guess I still have yet to hear a realistic argument for why research revenue is more profitable to the University than teaching revenue. Like I have noted previously, all revenue (direct and indirect costs) from a research grant is targeted to be spent on the aims of that grant. That is of course unless someone is misusing indirect costs to pay for something like finishing the construction of a hospital? But we all know that something like that would never happen at UK. The administration in our College of Medicine and hospital would never attempt to hide something like that.

As far as the recruiting and retention debate go, I believe my guess is as good as anybodies. I do know that there have been an abnormal number of departures in the physician areas since the implementation of the Dr. Kearney vendetta, and the reports that I have been getting indicate that filling these positions has also been a bit of a struggle. This would suggest to me that this is a competitive market, and as I mentioned above, so too is the market for highly funded scientist/teachers.

Finally, I am not averse to starting up a research institute at UK that employs only funded researchers whose sole responsibility is research. These individuals would be expected to do no teaching or service and their salaries would come from grants and endowments.

Not just a stupid RN

3/28/2018 09:04:50 pm

That’s because everyone knows the truth but can’t afford to lose their jobs , tenure or tuition bonus for the fam

Shaggy

3/26/2018 03:44:44 pm

I like that idea of placing a value on teaching. Simply multiply the lecture hours/course hours times tuition revenue for that course. Like you said, this is almost pure profit for the school. What they use this tuition revenue for is not a part of the equation. It’s simply the principle that this teacher is bringing this revenue into the university. The beauty of it is that unlike research revenue, it has flexibility in how it can be used. Plus, taxpayers are paying into teacher’s salary and not really researcher’s salaries, so let those that do research and don’t teach but get salaries (for which there are a number of people in the college that fit into this category) pay themselves through their grants. I have trouble with this attempt to stigmatize teachers as some lower class citizens of this university. Cumulatively, teaching (tuition) for the 30,000 students attending this university brings in many times more revenue (well over 500 million dollars/yr.) into this university than research. It just doesn’t get the hype that research does.

3/27/2018 02:25:00 am

Thanks you for this comment Shaggy. I obviously agree with much of what you are saying here, but also feel compelled to point out that through our research we are also teaching students and postdocs to become independent investigators. I have always viewed teaching as the real gift that keeps on giving. Our research accomplishments are generally small pieces of an enormous puzzle, and fade into the sunset, whereas our teaching accomplishments grow and keep on growing with the accomplishments of the students we send out there. Even after 4 years of retirement I just finished writing a letter of recommendation for a former graduate student who is being considered for tenure down at Baylor College of Medicine. Hopefully in 10-20 years he too will be retired and writing letters of recommendation for students and postdocs that he has educated.

Grandpa scooby

3/28/2018 03:05:47 pm

$62000 to teach 50 hrs of lectues at most is more than $1000/ hr those must have been some aewsome lectures:-)

3/29/2018 07:17:08 am

Thanks for the comment Grandpa Scooby. As you well know, that was simply providing the data supporting the claim that teaching is a revenue producing facet of employment by a university. As I mentioned in other posts, I was also at that time serving as Director of Graduate Students for the department, in charge of student recruitment for the department, serving on the University's Graduate Council, serving on several graduate student committees throughout the department and the University, etc. Oh yeh, I also had an NIH grant to work on. :-)

Scooby

3/27/2018 09:03:27 am

I agree that tuition generates a lot of income for the university but where do you get the idea that tuition is “pure profit”? At least half of the tuition revenue is used to support infrastructure (buildings, facilities, technology) and staff, all of which are necessary for the operation of the teaching mission of the institution. And of course we have all of the capital projects with loans that have to be serviced. How much of the tuition funds are really available for faculty salaries? How would you balance the ability of popular majors like education to eat up these tuition funds against support for other less popular programs? Even if you did all of this what is the total amount of student/hours of undergraduate teaching available at UK and given that there are 2000 faculty at UK and all of these should have the opportunity to teach how many student/hours of teaching would a faculty member earning let’s say $100,000/year in salary and benefits need to do to support themselves?

3/27/2018 11:57:23 am

You will note that I did say that it is “almost pure profit”. My point being that revenue generated from tuition, as opposed to revenue generated from a research grant, can be used for anything the university may need it for. What they choose to use it for does not make it any less valuable. I am not totally sure how this is done, but I suspect that the university submits an annual budget to the state that defines their projected overhead needs such as for salaries, operation of the facilities, capital improvements, etc. The state then says: “here’s how many taxpayer dollars we are able or willing to contribute towards this goal”. The university then makes do with what the state can provide and what they can generate from other sources like tuition revenue, endowments, etc. My point being that it is a simple fact that: “an unfunded tenured faculty member bringing tuition into the university in excess of his/her salary and benefits cannot be categorized as a financial burden to the university”. Therefore it would be an injustice to begin firing faculty members in this category simply because they have lost their grant support.

3/27/2018 02:23:02 pm

Thank you Scooby and Shaggy for your comments. I feel like I am six years old again and watching Saturday morning cartoons. You both present reasonable perspectives on this difficult topic. We all know where the hospital and College administration stand on this issue, but I would be more interested in hearing where the University President stands on the issue. Unfortunately I am not sure he really has a stance. The only person we ever publically hear from on controversial issues is of course Jay Blanton, and I worry he is not speaking for the President, but rather parroting what the General Council or Chief of Staff is ordering, and they’re both lawyers.

Scooby Dum

3/28/2018 09:22:01 am

Yes, it would be silly to get rid of these “unfunded faculty who bring in tuition in excess of their salary and benefits”. But how much tuition on a per student, per contact hour basis does an individual faculty member “bring in”. I doubt there are any unfunded basic sciences faculty in the college of medicine who might even vaguely qualify for having all their salary and benefits provided in return for full time teaching. Presumably the move to 9 months salaries and revision of the DOE process will shed some light on these issues.
My broader concern is that your arguments are all predicated on the theory that the university has more money that it claims, that this is wasted on things that you don’t like (and think run the gamut from being wasteful or unethical or criminal). Have you ever considered the possibility that you might be wrong or that efforts to improve the university are being made by decent people with honest motives or that having higher standards and higher expectations for faculty might be one way to make the university better so that it better serves the needs of the state?

3/28/2018 12:23:35 pm

Thanks for the comment Scooby Dum. I think my analysis above of simply one of the classes I taught while employed by the university mathematically justified my salary. I feel certain there are many other examples that could be provided. Keep in mind that although there is this move to dumb down basic sciences for medical students, these in-state students pay $38,472 per semester while out-of-state students pay $68,000 per semester. Even in its dumbed down state it would not take much teaching of these classes of 135 students to pay a $100,000 salary. Having said that, I will grant you that there are basic sciences faculty that are not pulling their fair share, but I am of the opinion that doing away with the limited protections tenure provides is not the answer. This pathway provides too large a temptation for an abuse of authority, an avenue for age discrimination as well as a major impediment to both recruiting and retention. Furthermore, I think I offered some reasonable ideas for alternatives, and I am more than willing to hear any constructive approaches that you might be able to offer.

I suppose if you wish to interpret blog comments as some theory that the University is wasting money on things we don’t like, I feel it important to point you to some documented misuses of UKHC revenue by the University and UKHC administration. There is the UKHC/KMSF incident that cost us 4 million dollars in penalties and another 1 million dollars in lawyer’s fees. Then there is the evidence of the many, many dollars that have been spent and continue to be spent barring access to open records, suing the school newspaper and of course the 3 year ongoing hiring of multiple lawyers lawyers to destroy the career of one of the hospital’s physicians. Lest we also not forget the famous Dean’s Enrichment Fund with its Iroquois Hunt Club, Keeneland memberships, etc. At least from some perspectives, these things cumulatively suggest a waste of a lot of University revenue that could have been used to foster projects that might facilitate addressing the issues above, thus allowing the University to become a better place, so that it can better serve the needs of the state.

3/28/2018 01:43:40 pm

How many hours of teaching did you do? What were your salary and benefits? Add on a bit for prep time and grading (if you had to do some). Divide one by the other and post the answer. Now multiply that by a 60 hour work week, 50 weeks a year. I bet the number is in Mike Karpf territory :-)

3/28/2018 02:53:42 pm

Thanks for your question Scooby Dum. I believe I answered this question in my response to Super Mole's comment above.

Scooby dum

3/28/2018 02:59:44 pm

How many hours of lectures did you give? Why do you think that all of the tuition is earmarked for faculty salaries?

3/28/2018 06:27:56 pm

Thanks for the comment Scooby Dum. I'm beginning to understand the name. Simply read the comment reply. It is not a matter of lecture hours but rather the percentage of the class taught, the number of students attending and the tuition revenue generated. It really isn't higher mathematics. Furthermore, it really does not matter where the tuition is earmarked for. What they use it for is their prerogative. It is simply the fact that the salary being paid is equal to or better than the money being generated in the teaching assignment.

3/29/2018 04:02:26 am

I think the flaw in your logic is that by giving some lectures you are somehow responsible for the student enrollment at the university and therefore entitled to a large share of the associated income. The product the students are getting is a degree from UK. If you didn't teach the course, someone else would. Think about it this way. Kids come to UK to play for Calipari, that makes the program happen and he gets a cut of the TV money and Nike sponsorship because without him the value of UK basketball would diminish. Your argument is like suggesting someone selling hot dogs in Rupp Arena should also be getting a cut of the TV and Shoe money..

3/29/2018 05:38:24 am

Thanks for your comment Super Mole. Personally I do not see any flaw in my logic. This logic is no different than physicians like yourself justifying the salary and bonus KMSF/UKHC is awarding you for bringing revenue into the hospital/university. Teachers are bringing revenue into the university and are being rewarded for that with a salary. Now folks like yourself wish to say that this does not count as bringing revenue into the university. Sorry, I'm not buying it.

Velma

3/27/2018 02:38:51 pm

Salaries we hear are from Kmsf slush funds and other “needs “ that arise and that includes scholarships etc for doctors families ?

3/28/2018 04:48:03 am

Thanks for this comment Velma. I believe that you are correct, at least as far as the physician salary bumps and bonuses are concerned. Unfortunately we will never know the details of this because of the cryptic nature of reporting of University/hospital money management by KMSF and public inaccessibility to these data. I believe the state contributes a minimum amount to this salary pot for physicians that teach, but as we have experienced, because teaching is viewed by some as an impediment to hospital revenue production, the hospital administration tends to minimize DOE credit for teaching, this in spite of the fact that, especially in their third and fourth years, the hospital profits from the teaching activities of these students and residents. The salaries of basic sciences faculty in the College of Medicine I would assume are paid through the same pot of money that other university faculty are paid from, or at least probably should be. These salaries are accessible through public records requests.

Scrappy

3/28/2018 09:17:58 am

KMSF does have a “tuition assistance program” for dependents of physicians. The purpose of this is to recruit and retain physicians who have concerns about living in a state that has a public university system that is not as strong as those in some of our neighboring/regional states and who are consequently looking at a high cost of sending their sons and daughters to out of state/private institutions. This information has been on the KMSF web site for a while and is also provided to physicians who are associated with KMSF so its certainly neither secret or outside of the scope of the purpose of KMSF.

3/28/2018 12:40:39 pm

Thanks for the comment Scrappy. You are correct in that the tuition assistance program is on the KMSF site with documentation in their financial statements. This documentation includes lists of faculty and students receiving the benefit. I have no problem with this and have in the past suggested something similar (to the last 3 University Presidents) as a potential benefit the university should think of offering to all of its faculty. It would be a fantastic tool for faculty recruitment and retention and it really would not cost the University much, because it would not increase class sizes to any great extent and it is a good possibility that many of these talented students might under the current situation choose not to attend UK. Furthermore, this is a documented benefit offered by a number of other universities.

3/28/2018 01:37:23 pm

Of course 8 semesters of in state tuition at UK pays for about one year of out of state tuition at a top public university or at a private university. But every bit helps I suppose.

3/28/2018 06:17:56 pm

Thanks for the comment Scrappy. This sounds like a ingenious solution to the problem. Charge students more for taking classes at this University. Let me think now, we are the 47th poorest state in the union and charging students and their parents more should solve only one problem, and that is where we house the students attending the University. Constructive suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

3/30/2018 03:18:09 pm

I meant that if you have to sent your kids out of state because uk is substandard kmsf only pays about 25% of the cost.

3/28/2018 09:02:37 pm

Ok so it’s ok to spend millions on a plane (jet mind you ) including gas, food , lodging , drinks , four suites at Churchill downs , ummm millions of bonuses to hazard docs who ultimately cost us 14 million , millions of dollars in taking dr kearney out cause he was smart enough to figure it all out years ago ... three top execs leading at Uk .... thousands in bonuses ... build build oh crap how we built too much .... and bammmmm I’m retiring ... while I ride out in my Mercedes with my driver .... and smile at the naked 1 million dollar male statue ... seems to me we have forgotten the reason Albert b Chandler medical center was started ..... let’s get back to the patients ... therefore put kearney back in major OR

3/29/2018 04:30:19 am

Thanks for the comment Not. I totally agree, patients should come first in a hospital, especially a hospital that is part of a public university and partially funded through taxpayer's dollars. As we have discussed previously, by removing one of their best trauma surgeons from practicing at this university hospital, the argument can be made that these administrators have jeopardized the safety of the people they are suppose to be serving . The coincidental disappearance of the major players in this removal and the approach to achieving this removal clearly suggests motivations beyond the claimed history of bad behavior that they had endorsed for 25 years. So I, like many others, agree that Dr. Kearney should be returned to the trauma ward where he rightfully belongs.

Oh and by the way, I have great respect for RNs. My most favorite person to ever grace this world, that being my mother, was one for close to 50 years.

Not just a stupid Rn

3/29/2018 06:12:08 am

Thank you Dan and much respect to ur momma

Will

3/29/2018 03:55:11 am

It would not surprise me at all that if you dig deep enough you would find that the University is a central player in this political move to do away with tenure, and Jay Blanton has been tasked with masking it. We all know that these people have no regard for “due process”. They have shown that over and over again in the past 10 years or so. Furthermore, they have also repeatedly demonstrated that they view the buildings much more important than the people occupying them. With that in mind, if you really want to know what this is all about you need to go no further than here: https://www.research2.uky.edu/rb2 . This new 265 million dollar research building (that was funded half from the state and half from university resources) is scheduled to open this year, and unfortunately they have few if any funded researchers to put into it. They have to get rid of the unfunded researchers first so that they can afford the partial salaries for these new funded researchers they wish to hire and of course fire as soon as they lose their funding, or if they just do not like them. To do that they need to get rid of the impediment tenure would be to this process. So do not expect “due process” from these people because they do not have the hearts required for that. They would rather you believe them to be good people than actually be good people.

3/29/2018 05:24:00 am

Thanks for the comment Will. Wow, busy day on the blog. Where's the sun when you need it. Yes this university tends to build buildings and worry about filling them later. I suppose the motto is, if you build it they will come. I would think this legislation for 9 month salaries and doing away with tenure might work well in getting rid of those dead beat unfunded researchers, but I can't see it making us very competitive in identifying and hiring researchers to fill not only this building but also all of the other empty lab spaces generated by this clearing house. Funding everywhere is going down and as we have seen, many of the graduating PhD level scientists are heading out of science because of the job market and funding. Furthermore, I feel certain that the strategy will be to bring in junior level scientists with startup grants and let them prove their worth. Of course for the first 3-5 years these individuals are generally worthless in any of the other less important faculty obligations like teaching and service, so basically the College will have to either stop teaching courses or pile this workload onto the available funded researchers. Of course these new burdens on established research scientists will stress their abilities to maintain a strong research program and wahla, loss of funding and loss of job. Ahh, how sweet it is, that is unless you are a physician researcher, because that person can simply turn to their KMSF remedy.

3/30/2018 03:03:15 pm

I also think the uk administration are behind the efforts to enable termination of tenured faculty.

3/29/2018 04:14:57 am

Universities are not true democracies or meritocracies. People in control get to decide what they want to do with the money and people who work at the university get to decide if they are willing to work there or not. Kearney's case is simply a dispute over his treatment by the hospital credentialing process. Its not a referendum on the operation of the hospital/healthcare enterprise and trying to make it one will not be a successful strategy.

3/29/2018 07:04:36 am

Thanks for your comment and opinion Super Mole. I feel certain that some out there might argue the issue that: "people in control are limited to deciding what they want to do "legally" with the money" physicians, researchers and teachers generate. As we have seen with the Hazard Cardiology fiasco people deciding what to do with the money can be detrimental to the University. Furthermore, this is a public university and hospital, so technically this is not the people in control's money, but rather the citizen's of this state's money. Therefore in certain respects the citizens of this state are really the people in control. Perhaps this is why the people in control appear to be running for cover.

Wolfie smith

3/30/2018 03:05:17 pm

Power to the people!!!
Cant wait for the kearney-noonan administration to make uk great again!

3/31/2018 06:10:12 pm

Thanks for your comment Wolfie. I guess it all boils down to what you mean by great?

If it's another NCAA championship, I doubt Dr. Kearney nor myself have the three point shot for that.

If you mean the top nationally ranked public university in the country, well again, I don't think Dr. Kearney nor I have the three point shot for that.

If you mean a slightly better and more transparent College and hospital for faculty and staff to work in, all I can say is that at least we are trying. It beats sitting around and anonymously slighting those attempting to do that.

I hope you and all the readers of this blog have a joyous and safe Easter.

4/8/2018 07:27:38 am

Where has everyone gone?

Glum n done

4/8/2018 01:46:41 pm

So is judge reynolds off the case? Is the new judge acceptable?

4/10/2018 02:34:03 pm

Thanks for your comments GG and Glum. Sorry about the delay. On Friday, April 6 Judge Reynolds heard a motion (Filed by Dr. Kearney's attorney Bernard Pafunda) to remove himself from the bench on the Dr. Kearney case. The motion was approved and the order has been signed and filed. Dr. Kearney is now officially awaiting a new Judge to be assigned in Fayette Circuit Court.

Glum

4/11/2018 06:47:39 am

Complaining about the refereeing after you loose is bad enough but doing this before the case has even been presented smacks of a lack of confidence and paranoia on the part of team kearney.
I suppose at least this limits their excuses when they lose the case... and it prolongs the whole thing so we can all continue to enjoy the blog!

4/11/2018 12:12:57 pm

Thanks for the comment Glum. I really do not get your point here. Nobody is complaining and this legal move by Dr. Kearney’s lawyer in no way reflects a “lack of confidence and paranoia”. Personally, from the sounds of it, you appear to be the one panicked by this decision to have a more neutral judge in charge of these proceedings. A judge whose wife works in the College of Medicine would have to be interpreted as having a conflict of interest in the prosecution of a physician from the College of Medicine. This doesn’t just apply to Dr. Kearney’s case but also the University’s case. Who knows, the Judge’s wife may, like many others in the College of Medicine, feel this treatment of Dr. Kearney is a travesty of justice, which in turn could theoretically influence the Judge’s administration of the case in Dr. Kearney’s favor. So as I see it, it is better for all parties involved that the judge recuse himself from the case. I would think that you and the University would be whooping this up, because they are the ones with the endless taxpayer dollars with which they are using to do everything they can to keep this from going to trial and to drag this abuse of authority out.

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