Dr. Paul Kearney Case Update

1/29/2016

Once again, for those new to this blog site, at present there are 10 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. Finally, to understand the development of the blog it is best to read it from the bottom post (Dr. Paul Kearney Case) up.

This update is really not mine but rather an email update sent out by Dr. Davy Jones to University Senate members and other faculty. For those that have not seen the email I have pasted it in below. To summarize, some of the interesting new stuff includes:
1. An edict by the soon to be former Dean of the College of Medicine (COM), Dr. Fred deBeer, defining exactly what type of scientific research that Dr. Paul Kearney can perform as a faculty member in the COM.
2. A declaration (some might view as a threat) by the President's Chief Council, William Thro, stating that if Dr. Kearney does not perform this type of research it would be considered "an act of insubordination and neglect of duty" for which "his status as a tenured faculty member" could be immediately reviewed.
3. An interesting conversation with former University Senate Chair and former COM Faculty Council Chair Dr. Hollie Swanson in which the President's Chief Council (once again Mr. William Thro) reportedly told faculty while explaining faculty governance at a COM faculty council meeting, that faculty did not have any business asking questions with regards to this Dr. Kearney case.
4. Interesting presentation quotes from a Department of Surgery faculty meeting in which the Department Chair Dr. Jay Zwischenberger and KMSF Director Dr. Marcus Randall spent the meeting maligning anyone associated with the Dr. Kearney case including the State's Attorney General and the Herald Leader.
5. An email mandate from soon to be former Dean of the College of Medicine, Dr. Fred deBeer, telling Dr. Kearney that he "does not approve" his request to attend Grand Rounds (a public meeting), which is in complete defiance to what the Board of Trustees and I even believe the University President stated he was allowed to do.

These are just a few highlights, so I encourage you to read the complete email. I realize that a few readers of this blog view faculty like Dr. Kearney, Dr. Jones and myself as "irrelevant people". Fortunately, this blog is really not about us but rather about the extremes that this university, hospital and college administration will go to silence any criticism or investigation of their practices. Furthermore, some may view these events and our presentation of them as simply paranoia, but no matter what denial avenue you choose, irrefutable evidence is still irrefutable evidence. Anyone who views what is happening here as totally justifiable and fair, please elaborate, because I am sure those throughout the COM and hospital following this vendetta and asking "who will be next?" would like to know why.

Dr. Davy Jones Email:
From: Jones, Davy
Sent: Monday, January 11, 2016 1:16 PM
Subject: Update on Paul Kearney Case 01-11-2016

Senate Council faculty members,

Now that we are starting the new academic semester, I want to offer some update on the case of our colleague Dr. Paul Kearney.  As you recall, the UK Board of Trustees Health Care Committee on 8/24/2015 directed the President that the rights and privileges of Dr. Kearney as a tenured faculty member be immediately restored.  Dr. Kearney has filed a lawsuit stating that the University administration is academically retaliating for his whistleblowing at College of Medicine Faculty Council meetings concerning noncompliance of the University with Adm. Reg. 3:14 (that is about faculty and the KY Medical Services Foundation, KMSF). On 8/28/2015 President’s General Counsel Bill Thro (who confirmed on 11/14/2015 that he is speaking for the President) placed additional academic restrictions on Dr. Kearney, such as forbidding that Dr. Kearney provide any kind of instruction to residents (even if not involving patients) and stating that Dr. Kearney has no right to attend what the General Counsel/President concedes are “public events” (e.g., “Grand Rounds”) at which some residents may be also attending for educational purposes.  President Capilouto then on 10/12/2015 apologized to the University Senate: “And our management of the results of the actions of our Board of Trustees has been imperfect. And for that, I apologize.” However, the President, through Mr. Thro and Dean de Beer, has continued to impose the same and more academic restrictions onto Dr. Kearney, below.

Nov. 6, 2015
As reported by the Herald-Leader, the KY Attorney General rendered an Open Records decision that KMSF is not a private entity, but rather is a part of the University of Kentucky and therefore its records are subject to the Open Records law.

Nov. 12, 2015
Dept. of Surgery Chair Jay Zwischenberger and KMSF Executive Director Marcus Randall apparently offered their opinion to a meeting of the Dept. of Surgery Faculty:

JZ: “Why are we in the newspapers … what happened? Well, I see as a native Kentuckian and as somebody who has been intimately involved, there are four sources … that want to try to get attention.  The first of these is a faculty member….  The second person was a medical student … and now they have an anger over what they went through as a medical student… The third source, is we have someone who is an Attorney General, that they lost the election.  I’m sorry, but they lost the election! So they have, I think this is their heart.  There is a fourth source, and that is the University of Louisville...

So if you are Frankfort, and you are going ‘Gee I just lost an election’ … and we’ve got a couple of unhappy people wanting to unseal the records, you can easily see how those four interplay … Am I inside the head of these four people? Of course not.  But on the other hand I see where these Open Records requests are coming from.”

MR: “Can I give a fifth?   The fifth one is the local media.”
JZ:    “Oh yeah!”
MR:  “Somebody wants a Pulitzer Prize or something like that … they’ve been convinced by some of the people Zwisch’s  been talking about that there is a big story here that is going to be on the front page of the Herald Leader …  they are going to get a newspaper award and be famous. That’s driving part of this too.”

Nov. 20, 2015
The sworn deposition of former Senate Council Chair and former COM Faculty Council Chair, Dr. Hollie Swanson, was rendered in the Paul Kearney whistleblower lawsuit. Quoting some parts:

PK Attorney:  … after the January [21, 2014 College Faculty] Council meeting, you walked away of the opinion that Administrative Regulation 3:14 had been breached; is that correct?
Swanson:  That is correct.
…………………………….
PK Attorney:  …  and it was your opinion that this breach was not publicly known?
Swanson:  That’s true.
……………………………..
PK Attorney:  …   General Counsel, William Thro, explained faculty governance [at the 04/15/2014 Faculty Council meeting]?
Swanson:  Yes
PK Attorney:  …   What did he discuss?
Swanson:  He told us that we didn’t have any business asking these questions.

Dec. 3, 2015

By letter of 12/3/2015, an independent statutory body of Dr. Kearney’s professional medical peers (Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure), having examined the UK administrative allegations against Dr. Kearney and materials prepared by the UK administration, decided that within the law there was no professional misconduct on Dr. Kearney’s part and that the administration’s allegations/materials did not even warrant transmittal from the KBML inquiry committee to its formal hearing panel. (“… insufficient evidence of a violation to warrant issuance of a Complaint”). (emphasis added here)

Dec. 14, 2015

Dr. Kearney met with Dean de Beer on 12/10/2015 and, in part, informed the Dean as to the Board of Medical Licensure’s determination above.  Within several days, the Dean sent to Dr. Kearney the statement:

From: de Beer, Frederick C
Sent: Monday, December 14, 2015 8:37 AM
To: Kearney, Paul A
Cc: Zwischenberger, Jay
Subject: RE: Surgical Grand Rounds

Paul: I do not approve of you attending Grand Rounds on December the 16th. Fred de Beer
(emphasis added here)

Remember the Grand Rounds is, as Bill Thro/President have conceded, a “public event.”  Dr. Kearney first saw the dean’s above email during the same 12/14/2015University Senate meeting at which the President appeared before the Senate and claimed to the faculty that his policy is to protect the academic freedom of the faculty.

Dec. 10, 2015

On Sept. 28, 2015  Dean de Beer in the presence of Associate Dean Michael Rowland restricted Dr. Kearney that the only research he is allowed to perform is “basic research” and that he must propose a plan for how his future academic activity will be primarily basic research. Dr. Kearney protested that many UK faculty who do not have clinical privileges nevertheless perform clinically translational research by virtue of collaboration with clinical faculty. Dr. Kearney protested that to singularly restrict him to solely “basic research” is in contradiction to the Board of Trustee’s August 24, 2015 action ordering the President that all of Dr. Kearney’s rights and privileges as a tenured faculty member be restored. Dean de Beer nonetheless repeated the demand again to Dr. Kearny on Dec. 10, 2015 that Dr. Kearney must submit a proposal for how his future academic activity as a tenured faculty member will be restricted primarily to “basic research.”

Dec. 23, 2015

General Counsel Bill Thro, who speaks for the President (per 11/14/2015 from Bill Thro), wrote  a follow-up to Dean de Beer’s insistence at meetings that Dr. Kearny must submit a proposal for how his primary academic activity as a tenured faculty member will be basic research.  Says Bill Thro (this is a direct quote):

“If he fails to do so, the University will regard this as an act of insubordination and neglect of duty.  In that circumstance, the University will immediately review his salary and his status as a tenured faculty member.”  (emphasis added here)

Remember of course the state law KRS 164.230 that protects tenure that says:

“no president, professor or teacher shall be removed except for incompetency, neglect of  or refusal to perform his duty, or for immoral conduct.”

I hope your find this information helpful.  Sorry for the length, but as you can see, much has been happening.

Davy

37 Comments

MrsLT

1/30/2016 11:25:55 am

I'll just weigh in and say that if everyone needs to have a viable plan to do basic sciences research or be at risk of having their tenure revoked that puts a lot of the basic sciences faculty in jeopardy.

For example, Davy Jones' faculty web page says that 70% of his DOE is for research. But when I looked him up on SpiFi I see that the only grant he is listed as being involved in ends tomorrow.

http://www.research.uky.edu/aspnet/vsprojects/spifi/search.aspx

Maybe Davy Jones and Kearney can work on their plans together starting on Monday!

UKRF: 201007131517
Account: 3048108076
Sponsor Name: National Science Foundation
SpagType: 1
Agreement Type: CR
Title: Does the Nuclear Receptor USP Integrate Methyl Farnesoate Signaling During Metamorphosis?
Key Words: HORMONE; RECEPTOR;
Topical Area: CANCER;CELLULAR/MOLECULAR BIOLOGY;TOXICOLOGY;
Dept Code: 8E300
Department: Biological Sciences
Sponsor Number: IOS-1052142
Project Start: 02/01/11
Project End: 01/31/16
Budget Start: 02/01/11
Budget End: 01/31/16
Principal Inv: Jones, Grace

1/30/2016 12:19:34 pm

Byt the way this is Wavy Davy's Web page with the DOE info:

https://toxicology.med.uky.edu/users/djones

Presumably he will be updating this to 0% research first thing on Monday Morning.

Dan Noonan

1/30/2016 03:52:57 pm

Thanks for the post Mrs LT. Once again in your compulsion to denigrate faculty colleagues of your college you have completely missed the point. Let me repeat, this is not about Dr. Jones or even Dr. Kearney, but rather about the rights of all university faculty (weather you like them or not) that are being totally undermined by the administration. If you think it is legitimate for a dean of a college to dictate to tenured faculty: a) you cannot do anything in this college but research, b) this is the type of research you are required to do, and c) if you do not have this ongoing we will fire you for insubordination, then you are a lost cause, someone I would never turn my back on and definitely not someone I would care to call a university colleague. Furthermore, if you can’t see that this is an administration vendetta against a faculty colleague in your college then you deserve the bonus they are giving you for your loyalty preaching. What’s next, will the administration and lawyers begin to dictate things like the length of your hair, the clothes you wear, the shine on your shoes, the type of car you are required to drive, the people you will be allowed to associate with, the church you attend or the brand of toothpaste you will be allowed to use? Perhaps a little closer to home, maybe they might decide to dictate what you will be allowed to teach and how you teach it? So I am being silly here, right? Well let’s see, so far the administration have dictated to Dr. Kearny: who he can associate with, where he can go on campus, who he can teach and what the subject matter of his research must be. You may view this as completely legitimate, but I personally think the faculty and staff of the college and hospital are totally justified in their paranoia and concern for who will be next. Of course, this is exactly what the administration wants, a bunch of employees always looking over their shoulders and afraid to speak out. Ultimately allowing them to manipulate the college and hospital finances as they see fit and without any interference. And thus we are back to simply “prove us wrong” and have a 10-year public audit performed on hospital and college finances.

1/31/2016 05:33:00 am

Nothing denigrating about my post. In fact I think it would help the cause to take a roll call of all of the 231 basic sciences faculty who are at risk being asked to justify their appointments. I am pretty busy with my research now but if I have some spare time I might take this on as a little project.

John V

1/31/2016 04:11:44 am

I am a new poster to this blog and not from your university, but a friend alerted me to this blog and thought I might be interested in your controversy. He said this because we kind of had a similar situation at my university, only from the perspective of the administration trying to drive a respected faculty colleague out by creating an environment or work assignment that he could not survive in. Luckily for him and to the ire of our administration, we were able to help him through this and he is still with us. The 3 points/suggestions I might toss in here are: 1) this appears not to be just about the loss of one faculty’s rights to choose what type of research he can perform and who he can collaborate with to perform that research, but rather in the larger picture your administration is at the same time dictating to the rest of the clinical faculty who they cannot collaborate with; 2) perhaps someone from your basic sciences departments or even other university departments may need an adviser/collaborator on their grant should they be doing some surgical procedures on their mice or other animal species; and 3) perhaps you should seriously think about bringing in a union (AAUP) representative to chat about what they might offer with respect to these issues.

The best of luck in resolving this.

1/31/2016 12:59:45 pm

Thanks for your constructive addition to the blog John. These are great suggestions. If you would wish to chat about this further and not on the blog, feel free to email me at dnoonan48@gmail.com

1/31/2016 05:17:14 am

Yes John V one way to insulate oneself from harassment by any university administration is to engage in sponsored research.

1/31/2016 01:10:39 pm

Thanks for another useless comment in the blog Mrs LT. Your response to John V is accurate but could be a challenge if the administration chooses to dictate what type of sponsored research a faculty member is required to perform.

I chose to delete your previous email simply because it was filled with racial and other nonconstructive comments. If you can't be constructive and civil in your comments on this blog, don't bother to participate.

2/7/2016 03:59:21 am

What on earth was racial about my posting? The person who filed these open records requests is Lachin Hatemi, He has openly suggested that the UK COM is not supportive of Black and African American students. That is a fact.
http://keyconversationsradio.com/uk-grad-claims-racism-against-blacks/

2/7/2016 10:08:11 am

"The second person was a medical student … and now they have an anger over what they went through as a medical student…"

Lachin Hatemi is the person Zwishenberger was referring to in the transcript from the Davy Jones email.

I think you should put my post back up and let the readership decide if they think it was "racial" and non constructive. I think it was satirical and informative.

Rosie

2/1/2016 08:33:27 am

Finally an end to this. I have to agree with the comments above that this Mrs LT appears not to be much interested in discussing the concerns that I would hope all faculty should have with this documented extremist approach to destroying a career and driving out a fellow faculty member. Unfortunately, this Mrs LT appears only interested in maligning the careers of those who would risk the consequences of bringing this tragedy to our intention. One can only presume that this is being done in some wild effort to discredit the conversation at hand. I suppose if you can't deny the facts this is one avenue for distracting the readers from the truth. My best guess is that this Mrs LT is part of the administration perpetrating these offenses.

2/3/2016 03:58:03 am

Thanks for the comments Rosie and welcome to the blog. Sorry about the delay, but I have been busy elsewhere. I agree with your comments above. Unfortunately I hear from too many people that the hospital and college are just not good places to be working in at present. The word going around is that the administration has warned physicians and staff that they are not allowed to discuss or express opinions on this Kearney situation. Using employment to suppress freedom of speech simply adds to or supports the hypothesis that they have something to hide. As it is, the prevailing attitude appears to be that "I need the job and hopefully Dr. Karpf and company will be fired or retire and things will get better".

With regards to Mrs LT, unfortunately she appears to believe the administration is fully justified in the actions and approaches taken and are being taken to get rid of Dr. Kearney and to bring the college and the hospital into the 21st century. For that I say everyone is welcome to her/his opinion. My problem is with her approach to anyone who might find fault in that opinion or wish to present evidence that might reflect negatively on that opinion. In those cases she tends to attack some aspect of the individual rather than the evidence at hand. I guess it is like you said, if you can’t deny the facts distract the reader by maligning the fact checkers. Well anyway, have a great day and thanks again for commenting.

2/4/2016 06:56:29 am

Dr. Noonan, I can state with certainty that the administration has warned us about voicing opinions with regards to this Dr. Kearney lynching. Therefore, thanks to you and the others for daring to be the voices that we can't be, lest we be the next Dr. Kearney.

2/3/2016 11:54:21 am

Just a few additional items I would like to add to this discussion of the obtuseness of an administration dictating the type of research a faculty member is allowed to perform at The University of Kentucky. This also touches on Mrs LTs concerns about the credibility of the faculty members voicing their concerns in this blog. In looking over Dr. Kearney’s CV that I obtained from the Board of Licensure I note that since 1988 he has served as principle investigator on 33 grants and co-investigator/sub-investigator on 21 other grants. He also lists over 80 publications, 5 book chapters, 164 invited local/national/international lectures given, and 84 presentations at local/national/international meetings during this time period. All of this while at the same time teaching and saving many lives. This is quite impressive, and I would have to think even Mrs LT would have trouble matching this record. The point being, all of these grants, manuscripts and presentations were on clinical matters and now the administration and its lawyers have deemed that all of this means nothing. They have further dictated that for Dr. Kearney to keep from being fired from his job for insubordination he must dissociate himself from anything clinical, he can no longer teach and he must now obtain research funding in a basic research area. If this isn’t harassment I don’t know what is. I agree with Rosie’s suggestion that perhaps some concerned well funded basic scientist who might need some surgical expertise for their studies might think about including Dr. Kearney as a co-investigator on their grant. There has to be limits to what these people can get away with.

2/4/2016 08:27:20 am

Thanks XX for the blog comment. It is truly unfortunate that the administration of a state university and hospital has to resort to these tactics to suppress open criticism from those that work there. It definitely is not a great example to the student population they are supposed to be educating. Having said that, I should also point out that I set up this blog to both present the details of this vendetta and to offer others an opportunity to comment on this situation should they wish to. This is a private and secure blog site and I have set it up so that a commenter does not even have to include an email to make a comment. We have provided documented proof that the university lawyers are not beyond monitoring your university computers and emails, so my suggestion would be that, unless you are one of the administrators, I would make those comments from a home computer. My only desire is that you keep your comments civil and constructive. Thanks again for your support and good luck in your work.

Dr Who

2/4/2016 11:49:53 am

I think Mrs LT’s criticisms of Dr. Kearney and those that dare attempt to expose the college and hospital administration’s misuse of finances are weak at best. From all that I have read, Mrs LT appears to feel that basic sciences grant income is the defining factor of a faculty member’s contribution to a university, or perhaps even to science. I totally disagree with that and I can name at least one modern day basic sciences Nobel Laureate that I believe never had an NIH R01 grant in his career. That of course would be Kary Mullis who invented PCR technology, without which I suspect folks like Mrs LT would not be able to perform the research work they have ongoing today. Alternatively, I can name folks with tons of grant income who have made few if any real contributions that have advanced scientific knowledge. I guess what I am trying to say is, grant income can be a very poor barometer for scientific credibility.

2/4/2016 04:13:02 pm

Thanks for the comment Dr Who. I totally agree with you on this. Extending this a little I would have to say that success as an academic scientist is much more than the number of grants or the dollars in grant support one manages to obtain. Real success is a measure of the amount one moves science forward. Having said that I must also state that there are multiple ways to move science forward, and I think grants may be the slowest and least efficient way. I would have to believe that the most efficient mechanism for moving science forward would be through education and training. The thousands of people you educate or inspire or train to be scientists are themselves part of your contribution to science. I personally was involved in the invention of cloning technologies back in the late 70s and early 80s. I collaborated with one of the labs that received the Nobel Prize for DNA cloning. I even owned my own cloning company. In fact, I would estimate, in my short career in science, I personally made over 500 cDNA libraries, and these cDNA libraries were subsequently used by scientists throughout the world to advance their studies. But all of that is nothing in comparison to the thousands of students I have taught, the dissertation committees I have served on and the many students and postdocs I have personally trained while a faculty member at the university. I view the successes and contributions of these students and the students they inspire, etc. to be an extension of my real contributions to moving science forward. So yes Dr Who, I believe it is all a matter of ones perspective of what he/she feel is important in life.

Transposing this to the blog emphasis, I believe that success as a physician is likewise not simply a measure of the research accomplished or even the number of patients treated, but more the impact you have on the profession. The physicians you have taught and trained are a huge extension of a physicians contribution to his/her profession. It is well documented that Dr. Kearney, beyond being an outstanding physician and well-subsidized physician researcher, was also an outstanding teacher. His methods have been sometimes termed a little unorthodox, but when you are training students in a field where mistakes cause lives, it is best to define early who has what it takes and who does not. Therefore, it is unfortunate that in his attempts to make the college and hospital better places by eliminating corruption, the university has chosen to abuse their authority and do everything in its power to discredit his accomplishments. For the sake of the university I hope he wins this war, but no matter how this turns out, Dr. Kearney’s legacy will always be out there and continue to grow with the many achievements of those he has trained. They can’t take that away from him.

Mr Y

2/4/2016 02:30:25 pm

I can also confirm that faculty and staff are being warned not to discuss Dr Kearney's situation. It is my experience that the majority are on his side, but afraid to speak publicly. The hospital is definitely not a good environment to work in right now. Look for a lot of exits in the coming future. I imagine we'd see more leave if there were more job options close by,but people with kids and mortgages can't just pick up and go like some can. The administration is destroying any teamwork environment into a "watch your back, is there a mole here" environment.

2/4/2016 04:24:27 pm

Thanks for the comment Mr Y. I totally agree and completely understand the frustration. I hope this new Dean proves to be more than another servant of the EVPHA. Obviously the best case scenario would be for our current EVPHA to leave and they find someone with integrity, is honest and is a good listener. Well anyway it is nice to dream before one goes to bed.

P.F. Sloan

2/5/2016 03:41:21 am

But you tell me
Over and over and over again my friend
Ah, you don't believe
We're on the eve of destruction

2/7/2016 06:21:54 am

I give up.
My broad concern is that I am interested in research. Research costs money so people who are good at research have to get funds to support it. The funds are determined by peer review. Then, when you do some research you publish it. The publication process also involves peer review. Then people cite the work, reproduce it and over time it acquires value. During the course of doing research you involve students and fellows. They gain credit for publishing and move on. Some of them become researchers, If you are lucky a few do well. Universities that harbor people who do these things effectively are recognized and grow and develop. This is the way of the academic world. In order to do my research I need to work somewhere that has institutional resources, leadership and infrastructure to help me succeed. In the end, all of these things add up. UK is not a quality environment for research and scholarship. The currency of success in science is peer recognition. I want to work somewhere that’s recognized as being excellent. One measure of this would be having colleagues who are HHMI investigators, or members of the National Academies or the British Royal Society. UK can’t offer me any of this. UK has little to no state support, little to no philanthropy outside of the Athletic programs and a fairly weak level of grant support for the total number of faculty. This is why UK Healthcare has such a stranglehold over the financial operation of the COM. And on top of that the people in charge are not really academics or researchers and have little to no scientific curiosity. The Kearney situation is tragic, unnecessary and an injustice but even if you fix it its not going to make any difference to the real problems. The basic sciences departments have been decapitated and left to die, there are no resources to hire people from outside and even if there were people won’t want to work somewhere like UK. Even when investments have been made like the Cancer Center project, all that’s been accomplished is to take a large amount of money and generate a smaller amount of money while getting the bare minimum qualification (NCI designation) that all of our other “peer institutions” already have.
I told you before, the reason Karpf was pushed out of UCLA was that he squeezed the researchers to use funds to support the clinical operation and this got out of control when times got tight. UCLA cares about its reputation as a top public research institution so people complained, went behind his back, threatened to move research programs and got him removed. I know this to be true. I am sure he came to UK because he saw that nobody has the gravitas to push back against him.
And yes, I am trying to leave. It takes time but I am confident it will work out eventually.

2/8/2016 08:16:03 am

Thank you Mrs LT for the informative post. I really got a lot out of it. This may be hard to believe, but I agree with everything you discus in this post. Well maybe I am still siding with the Japanese mafia connection and Dr. Karpf’s leaving UCLA, but that isn’t important here. To begin with, under the current administration I can’t see any way that the University of Kentucky will ever be able to attain a research status comparable to the institutions you discuss in the blog. As you mentioned, our level of endowments in the area of research is next to nothing. I noted this in one of the budget meetings I attended and Dr. Karpf’s response was “that’s the job of the researchers”. Also as you noted, we have no Nobel laureates or National Academy members here, nor I doubt will any be knocking down our doors to come here. Furthermore, if one should begin to surface from our faculty population, that person would soon find a new home in one of the other well endowed elitist institutions. Let’s face it, we are in Kentucky and not sitting along the ocean. Some of the people who come to work here are doing it in part because they feel it is a great place to live and raise a family. I can’t say I blame them, and definitely would not question their priorities. Finally, we have this important job of educating the youth of the state of Kentucky. As much as Dr. Capilouto has worked on attracting the premier high school students of this state, I think it is as much if not more important that we attract and matriculate the average and below average students of the state.

So how can we improve our national research prominence? I recognize this is a Mount Everest type of climb, but in all seriousness, I would welcome any suggestions you might have. To me, this improvement has to begin at the top. We need leadership that is dedicated to more than increasing the number of buildings we have on the campus. If you want a recognized research presence at the university you either develop it from within or you recruit it. Thus far the approach has been primarily to look for potential at the assistant and associate professor level and hope they make it to some elitist group like the National Academy. Kentucky has produced 4 Nobel Laureates and 2 of these, Thomas Hunt Morgan and William Lipscomb, did there undergraduate studies at UKY. But as with most successful research scientists, they took the last train for the coast. I believe we have also had at least 1 National Academy member, Robert Shepherd, who worked in Plant Pathology. But that is about it. So this strategy has not worked too well for us. What about recruiting someone of national/international prominence? The problem here is simply the carrot. Unless they are interested in SEC basketball tickets, we have nothing. The paltry endowment level and an administration that believes endowments are the responsibility of the research scientists, stops this option in its tracks. So I guess what I am saying here is that, other than the remote possibility that some talented scientist like yourself, working in the right area at the right time, reaches that elitist level and then decides to stay, our other avenue is to get rid of the current administration and recruit one that has a rational approach for increasing our research targeted endowments and recruiting researchers of international prominence. I think if that ever happened, the rest will follow.

I know that at least I would be interested in your thoughts for solutions to the issues you raised above. Thanks.

2/9/2016 03:45:13 am

I think you are right Dr. Noonan. What we really need is an administrator with vision and an ability to implement that vision. Perhaps a Mitch Barnhardt for research. I mean they are building this new research facility so why not rather than simply viewing it as a research facility, dedicate it as a research center in some philanthropically attractive disease (e.g. lung cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, parkinson’s etc.). Then go out and get some of these wealthy horse owners, coal people, movie stars, ect. to donate the large amounts of money needed to do the research and to attract an internationally famous/National Academy level of researcher in the area. In fact it would be best to do this first, pedaling the attraction of having the center dedicated to a disease they might have some personal reason to support. I mean, this is what most of these other places do and it seems to work. It is like you said, this famous researcher will attract others and there will be a trickle down effect on the existing research programs. I recognize that we already have some so called research centers here, but they were not established to attract philanthropic interests and internationally famous researchers, but rather were assembled from existing research expertises and probably formed to more or less look like we have a research focus and to appease the high quality researchers we have in this area. Well anyway, I like the idea.

2/9/2016 05:58:51 pm

Thanks Rosie for the comment. I, as might expected, agree with you, and if I ever win the Powerball lottery, subsidizing the research programs at the university in the manner you described would be tops on my list. I think my other area of investment would be in tenured senior faculty who have lost funding. I am sure some may consider this a waste of money, but most often these folks lose their funding because of changes in funding priorities at NIH, or simply not being able to keep up with the workload. This to me is a bit unfortunate because these are experienced researchers and probably excellent mentors. This is supported by the straightforward observation that many committees throughout the university came to the conclusion that these folks showed enough promise in their formative years to deserve tenure and promotion. I know from personal experience that as we get older and our work load diversifies ones ability to invest the many hours into the research project that one use to be able to do as a junior faculty becomes harder and harder. The perspective of many at the administration level is that these struggling folks are washed up and that the university should find a way getting rid of them so that they can bring in new young investigators. To keep their conscience placated, the administration of course offers this generally useless "bridge funding", which couldn't keep a row boat afloat. I personally think it is a tragic waste of invested money and talent. If I won the lottery and had the funds I would set up an endowment that would tap into this vast experience and knowledge and allow these senior faculty to continue to be active in research and mentoring. Probably not a popular perspective, but it is nice to dream.

2/13/2016 07:02:58 am

I totally agree that if "the administration" expect faculty to generate significant salary support from grants they need to provide an environment that enables collaborative and programmatic research because its not feasible to run a competitive research program all by yourself given the breadth of technologies and approaches that are needed.

2/13/2016 04:13:25 am

Much as it might pain people here to accept it, UK Healthcare is a reasonably successful business and UK now has a minimally acceptable academic medical center research program. And all this was done without spending much money. So as far as the people in charge are concerned this is all a big win. Is it feasible to make things significantly better? I don’t think so but if that’s what they want to do this would require a significant investment in recruitments and the kind of realignment of faculty effort with compensation that people who contribute to this blog clearly dislike. Apparently the New Dean has $10M/year for 5 years to try to recruit 50 people. I will be interested to see what kinds of people will consider moving here. One major issue is that the leadership (Department Chairs/Center Directors/Division Chiefs) is (with very rare exceptions) uniformly poor and good people don’t want to report to people they don’t see as being superior to them. This strange arrangement is, I think, a combination of the institution’s lifelong commitment to cronyism, the unattractiveness of these positions as recruitment bait and a “treading water” mentality while we wait for the New Dean to show up. The other shocking statistic is the lack of physician scientists who are hugely valuable catalysts of the research enterprise. If I were involved I might use most of the money to try to recruit 5 people to lead programmatic initiatives. But that would require a strategic plan and in all the time I have been here I have never seen one of these for the COM that had any significant detail in it. The root of the problem is that UK isn’t a strong academic institution, lacks peer recognition, and this is largely a product of a lack of investment over time. And the UK COM is relatively new so these problems are compounded. Transylvania had a Medical School in the 1800s. So if we could time travel back and invest a few $100,000 in it and stop it closing maybe Lexington would have a medical school and a biomedical research enterprise to rival those of Vanderbilt and Wash U? Other than that, people will come and go, we will get a new building, lots of money will be spent on the Cancer Center and nothing much will change. UK will still be about the same level as Wayne State or Oklahoma and a bit worse than MUSC. But it will never get to the level of Iowa or Utah let alone UNC or Michigan (I have visited all of these places in the last couple of years and can attest that US News and World Report’s rankings are largely on the money). If you are happy with that, then UK is the place to be.

Bob

2/18/2016 05:34:32 pm

I hope the new dean opens that check book right away. Reportedly, multiple surgeons are leaving the department of surgery. I'm not sure if this relates to Kearney issue, but big news regardless.

2/19/2016 10:17:42 am

Yes, that is what I am hearing. This includes some of the Trauma Surgeons. Apparently Andrew Bernard is moving to Cincy. Maybe they will have to reinstate Kearney?!

2/19/2016 01:03:39 pm

Thanks for adding to the blog site Bob and Mrs LT. This is becoming a serious problem, especially when you begin to lose physicians in a level 1 trauma center. This in essence can translate into loss of lives. The university president really needs to step up to plate here and resolve this deteriorating morale problem in the Medical Center. It is not only a problem with losing skilled physicians but also recruiting competent replacements.

Clearly this Dr. Kearney incident and how it has been handled has contributed to the deteriorating morale problem in the hospital, and perhaps resolving it might be a good place to start. I have always believed in resolving problems by tackling them head on, but unfortunately Dr. Capilouto appears to avoid this at all costs. Personally I think the best way to begin would be a private meeting between Dr. Kearney and President Capilouto, without lawyers or anyone else. Discuss the problem face to face and find out what Dr. Kearney might think would be a reasonable solution to the problem. Then maybe he could meet with the physicians or faculty council and get feedback from them as to what might be done to improve the working environment in the Medical Center. I realize people will be worried about retaliation and therefore reticent about speaking up, but a good leader can usually find solutions around this. Delegating this job to lawyers and hospital administrators has basically got us to where we are at now. If you are going to be a leader you need to fully understand the problems and in cases like we have here I do not think that this can be accomplished by delegating it to others.

These are just my thoughts on the matter. What might yours be?

2/19/2016 02:39:32 pm

The main problem with surgery is Zwishenberger who is just an idle busybody and troublemaker. His poisonous influence stretches beyond surgery into other areas of the medical center. The situation has got more precarious with the hiring of Bo Cofield which precipitated Boulanger's departure. Boulanger (a surgeon himself) was apparently keeping a lot of the surgery stuff organized. Boulanger's replacement is also a surgeon but far less experienced.
I do not think there is any way anyone will ask for Kearney's opinion but I do know that Boulanger was given an extensive exit interview by the president and provost which does suggest that (while neither of them know much about hospital administration) they are interested in understanding why good people are leaving.

2/19/2016 02:45:35 pm

Since there is a lot of interest in possible corruption how about this.
Sibu Saha gave ~$1M to the cardiovascular research center. In the wake of the Mark Plunkett fiasco Saha was then made division chief of CT surgery which has enabled him to avoid retirement staying on in this administrative position doing next to nothing (and nothing at all of any value). But at his current salary he has recovered ~3 times more in salary than he donated over the past 5-6 years. I'm not saying these things were connected but it does look a bit fishy that things have worked out so well for Dr Saha..

2/19/2016 05:03:03 pm

Thanks again for the blog posts Mrs LT (sorry, you know I have to say that). I think many would agree with your description of Dr. Harmonica, and although Bo knows I doubt he will tell. With regards to Dr. Boulanger’s replacement, Dr. Chang (someone with limited administrative experience), I suspect he is more of a puppet replacement. Although, from what I know of him, Dr. Boulanger has done little to no surgery work in the past 4-5 years, so perhaps Dr. Chang may be more informed as to the ongoing problems in surgery. But again, if he turns out to be a puppet replacement than it will be difficult for him to act upon that knowledge. Finally, I doubt that anything Dr. Boulanger (an established Dr. Kearney hater) might have to offer in an exit interview would be of any productive contribution to resolving the morale problem in the Medical Center. To me that would be all the more reason Dr. Capilouto should humble himself (not limit his conversations to administrators) and find out what the working stiffs feel is wrong with the working environment in the hospital. Again, just my opinions, and I already know that Dr. Capilouto doesn’t really think much of those.

I know nothing about the Dr. Saha story and although an interesting one, other than the observation that, if he/she was as unproductive as you suggest, it looks like someone involved in administering (letting it happen) is as much at fault as Dr. Saha.

2/20/2016 03:13:56 am

I don't think Boulanger was the instigator of the Kearney vendetta. He obviously had to implement it as part of his job. Having to do things he didn't like or agree with may have been part of what led him to leave.
I think there will be more people leaving in the summer and this will include some of the better researchers/academics. These people will be hard to replace (particularly given the low salaries and start up funds and the lack of credible academic leadership).

2/14/2016 05:21:43 am

Thanks for the informative comments Mrs LT. Sorry about the delay in responding. Unfortunately I am recovering from surgery and not quite able to comfortably sit in front of the computer yet, but just wanted to let people know I am still monitoring the blog. One quick question Mrs LT while I am here. Out of curiosity I would be interested in hearing which you would prefer seeing in the next 5 years, this new dean using the 50 million to recruit 50 new faculty, 5 new faculty or something in between? Thanks again.

2/14/2016 07:26:14 am

Dr. Noonan, sorry to hear that. I hope the surgery went well and that you will be back out on the golf course and back into the blog soon.

Interesting stuff Mrs LT.

Bill

2/14/2016 09:25:58 am

Ditto what Rosie said Dan. Take care.

2/14/2016 10:03:11 am

I certainly wish you a speedy recovery.

I would like to see a detailed strategic plan and recruitment of individuals who can provide intellectual leadership for programmatic research in areas that complement or build on existing strengths. I think its inevitable that this will require spending most of the money on a smaller number of people.

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Dr. Paul Kearney Case Update

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