Dr. Paul Kearney Lawsuit Update

9/24/2016

Once again, for those new to this blog site, at present there are 29 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. One point of note here, to read the earliest posts you have to click on the word "<<Previous" at the very bottom of the posts available.

The comment section ended in the previous blog post with further discussions about the Dr. Paul Kearney case. A blog commenter asked:
"So what if anything is happening with the Kearney Case? Is it actually going to go to trial? Or is it somehow entwined with the ongoing open records cases?"

For any new readers to the blog, this blog was initiated when the administration of the university hospital used a trauma ward incident (Dr. Paul Kearney using foul language during an emergency procedure) to take away Dr. Kearney’s patient privileges, ban him from coming on campus, telling his colleagues and staff that he is a dangerous person, confiscating his personal belongings and even attempting to have his license revoked. Interestingly, the person whose life he saved eventually decided not to file charges. Fortunately, not all of this early extreme harassment prevailed, and the Board of Trustees restored portions of his tenured professor privileges. Part of this might be because the university president received over a hundred letters of support for Dr. Kearney, the student residents in a clear defiance honored him with an award and the faculty voted him as their representative to the University Senate. In spite of all of this, the university lawyers and senior administration continue their harassment campaign.

Now you have to ask yourself, why does our university administration and its lawyers choose to protect a faculty member who they have deemed a sexual harasser and to harass a faculty member who is well respected by the students, staff and faculty he works with. One very strong possibility is that twice in the year 2014 (just prior to the above actions) Dr. Kearney suggested, in the presence of Dr. Michael Karpf and the College of Medicine Faculty Council, an audit of KMSF (the financial arm of the university hospital) finances. Both occasions resulted in verbal threats.

Eventually tiring of this harassment Dr. Kearney hired a lawyer and they filed a Whistleblower lawsuit against the university. Since then a variety of blog posts have touched on matters that have relevance to this Dr. Kearney case, including the university and KMSF’s defiance of open records laws and the state’s Attorney General. KMSF; founded by the university, governed by the university, defined by the Attorney General as part of the university, continues to campaign to claim independence from the university. This campaign began when people like Dan Ross and Paul Kearney questioned the financial practices of KMSF, and clearly suggests that KMSF has something to hide.

If any new blog readers wish to know the details of the above summary, further elaboration and official documents can be found in previous blog posts. With respect to where we are today in Dr. Kearney’s Whistleblower lawsuit, what I have been told is that what's going on now is the gathering of information through depositions and interrogatories. I have seen a copy of some of the interrogatories, and I believe a number of the senior administrators involved in the case have been or will be officially deposed with respect to claims they have made or their role in the whole process. Word on the street is that despite repeated requests, the University continues to stonewall and not produce witnesses for discovery. Because of this it is likely that this discovery phase will be extended again. The best guess at the current pace is that it will not proceed to trial until November. I should also note here that the lawsuit has been amended to include ongoing retaliation as well as abuse of authority by the President’s office including the General Council, old take the deal or we will destroy your career Professor/Adjunct Instructor Thro.

Just as one last tidbit of information. I was sent this publically available deposition of President Capilouto in regards to this case. Here it is:

From Deposition:
COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY
FAYETTE CIRCUIT COURT
DIVISION NO. III
CIVIL ACTION NO. 15-CI-551

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

The witness, ELI CAPILOUTO, after first being duly sworn, was examined and testified as follows:

Q And the Board of Trustees makes the rules and regulations that govern the University, do they not?
A They approve the governing regulations. The administrative regulations are the responsibility of administration to develop. We have a process we go through for that.*

Q And would not a regulation in place by the Board of Trustees need to be followed by University administrators?
A We'd certainly try to follow a regulation passed by the Board.

Q If a faculty member is placed on administrative leave that's over 30 days, do the Board of Trustees have to be informed?**
A I can't recall every regulation that we have.

Q Are you familiar with Administrative Regulation 3:14?***
A No, I'm not.
Q In any manner, shape or form?
A No, sir, I'm not.

Q And isn't it correct that under University regulations, if a matter is placed in somebody's personnel file that's adverse, that they have the -- they be given the opportunity to file a written response?****
A I don't know exactly what the University's specific regulations are on a matter like that […]
Q But if there is such a regulation, you would agree that that regulation should be followed; correct?
A I would hope so, yes.
________________________________________
*University Senate as a Administrative Regulation “Stakeholder”:http://www.uky.edu/regs/files/AR%20Process%20Flow%20Chart.pdf
“The Office of Legal Counsel shall seek comments from appropriate stakeholders.” http://www.uky.edu/regs/files/ar/ar1-6.pdf, pg. 2

**Board of Trustees Governing Regulation X, page 12:
“(3) Leaves With Pay
Upon the recommendation of the appropriate administrative officers and approval of the Provost, a faculty member may be granted leave of absence with pay for a period not to exceed thirty (30) days for the purpose of permitting an appointee to attend a professional meeting, serve temporarily with an outside agency, serve in the military forces of the United States, or for other good cause. Such leaves of absence with pay for more than thirty (30) days require approval of the Board of Trustees.” http://www.uky.edu/regs/files/gr/gr10.pdf, pg, 12

*** http://www.uky.edu/regs/files/ar/ar3-14.pdf

**** “3. Unsolicited materials relevant to professional function may be included in the Standard Personnel File by the educational unit administrator provided the faculty employee sees them and is offered the opportunity to document his or her response to them. The faculty employee’s written responses shall be placed by the educational unit administrator in the individual’s Standard Personnel File.” http://www.uky.edu/regs/files/ar/ar2-1-1.pdf, pg. 7

I can only guess that these issues of administrative leave and the right to respond to charges were clearly violated in the Dr. Kearney case. Claimed ignorance of the regulations is always a good plea, though one would have to surmise that if the University President is unfamiliar with the university regulations then his General Council must likewise be ignorant of these regulations. At any rate, I suspect that these were just 2 of many university regulations that have been disregarded in the administrations avarice to drive out a tenured faculty member. It is no wonder that the university hospital physician satisfaction rating is one of the worst if not the worst in the nation. It is interesting to note that 96% of all civil cases are resolved short of a jury trial (https://www.hunton.com/files/News/236c18dd-fcb6-4486-a348-e96597a7062a/Presentation/NewsAttachment/4ef14289-8ad8-4aa1-b2e6-9af18a76a3a8/To_Settle_Or_Not_To_Settle_Law360.pdf). One of the reasons for this is because “Employee morale can also be damaged when a company fights an employee's action tooth and nail”.

50 Comments

Hipaa Critical

9/24/2016 03:44:10 pm

http://www.kentucky.com/opinion/op-ed/article103696222.html

So people writing opinion pieces about the good things UKHC/KMSF do is propaganda that doesn't justify the still alleged bad things that you think they might have done and could prove if only you could get hold of all of their records. However, people writing 100 letters of support for Paul Kearney in recognition of the good things he has done does mitigate the multiple documented instances of his boorish, sexist and offensive behavior that led to his hospital privileges being revoked.

I think you are all going to be in for a big disappointment when all these cases are finally resolved.

Dan Noonan

9/25/2016 03:34:35 am

Thank you Hippa Critical for your comment. First off, I have to thank Spoon Snake who, in the comment section of the previous post, drew my attention to the IP address. You were absolutely right Mr./Ms. Snake, it does help to identify those that use multiple names on the blog and those that are simply trolling and attempting to provoke readers into emotional responses simply for their own amusement.

Let’s see, we are talking about 4 KMSF promoting Op Ed pieces including one from the head of KMSF, one from a member of the KMSF Board, one from a former Director of KMSF Billing Operations who made an annual salary of $224,971, and lastly one from the Central Bank president whose bank does direct business with this billion dollar KMSF operation. This versus over 100 letters directed to the university president from people inside and outside the university, many of whom worked with Dr. Kearney but not for Dr. Kearney, and Dr. Kearney’s personnel file that contains 26 consecutive outstanding performance evaluations signed off on by Dr. Kearney’s Division Chief, his Department Chair and his Dean; 29 teaching awards; an endowment in his name; a single anonymous student complaint and this single patient complaint that the court dismissed with prejudice and the Board of Licensure found no fault in. I personally do not see any hypocrisy in this comparison. One is a clear propaganda campaign designed to distract the public from the real issue at hand, that being the fact that KMSF was created by the University of Kentucky, KMSF is a component of the University of Kentucky and therefore KMSF is subject to the open records laws; while the other is simply facts that support the observation that this Dr. Kearney vendetta used as a pretense for revoking Dr. Kearney’s hospital privileges is in reality a blatant abuse of authority against a tenured university faculty member who had the audacity to question what KMSF and the hospital administration were doing with this University of Kentucky/public revenue the hard working employees of the University of Kentucky were generating.

I am not sure how I can be disappointed in any of this no matter how it turns out. I am retired and I will simply keep fighting the good fight wherever it might take me.

Da Illest

9/24/2016 08:38:02 pm

Can you please link the entire deposition? I'd like to review.

9/25/2016 03:37:14 am

Thank you for your comment Da Illest. Sorry, this is all that I received. Perhaps others out there have the entire document, or it might be available through an open records request.

Da Illest link

9/25/2016 12:46:04 pm

UK would probably sue if I asked for open records, no?

9/25/2016 02:54:25 pm

Thanks for the comment Da Illist. Just to be safe, you may want to have Da Illist make the request.

9/25/2016 11:50:16 am

Hopefully everyone is aware that KMSF does its banking with Central Bank and that Dr. Michael Karpf is listed as being on their Board of Directors. Surely there can't be any prejudice in this Op Ed piece.

https://www.centralbank.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Second-Quarter-2013-v2.pdf

9/25/2016 02:57:50 pm

Thanks for the comment and information DD. And here all along I was sure he was speaking from his heart and not his wallet.

Colleague

9/26/2016 02:18:24 am

I am not sure where Hipaa Critical is going with the above comment, but I have known and worked with Paul Kearney for over 20 years. Although demanding when you work with him, he is the best I have ever worked with. He is also very generous with his time and one of the best teachers in the College of Medicine. It is also clear that what they have done and are doing to Paul Kearney is driven by a few arrogant individuals at the top of the food chain here in the university, and is completely retaliatory. We all know that this has nothing to do with Paul Kearney’s behavior as a physician, but rather its intent was to send a message to the rest of us that, “we are the authority around here and this could happen to you if you dare to question our authority”. Thanks Paul for fighting this battle for us.

9/26/2016 03:42:24 am

Thank you Colleague for your comment. I am with you on this one. I never worked with Dr. Kearney but I did have the opportunity to watch him save the life of my graduate student who was in a severe car crash while driving through West Virginia. The physicians in Huntington could not handle his injuries so they sent him on to UK. The surgeon that contacted me from Huntington gave the kid less than a 10% chance of survival. I watched Dr. Kearney orchestrate a crew of residents and nurses in the critical care unit here for several weeks. Today that kid is an executive at a biotech company. From the letters I (and President Capilouto) have received, my experience with Dr. Kearney’s work is not unique.

I also had the opportunity to serve with Dr. Kearney on the College of Medicine Faculty Council. Paul was never reticent about voicing his opinion, and he was a strong advocate for faculty rites and welfare. As you noted, much to their ire, he would challenge authorities if he felt they were heading in the incorrect direction. He was outspoken on issues like the attempts to minimize teaching on physicians DOEs and the potential effects quantity of care (RVUs and their relationship to bonuses) might be having on quality of care. In the end, I believe, like you, that this attempt to drive him out of this university was as much message sending, as it was anything else. The problem being, they underestimated whom they were dealing with.

Rosie

9/26/2016 07:58:49 am

I would like to second what Colleague said. I also think the Press Gainey survey strongly suggests that a lot of employees in the hospital would likewise second these sentiments. What they have done to Kearney is a crime. To paraphrase someones earlier comment, what a sad statement for a public university administration when they protect a faculty member who is a sexual harasser while at the same time they harass a tenured faculty member for asking questions germaine to the integrity of the university.

Judge Judy

9/26/2016 09:28:17 am

The problem the university lawyers had with the Kearney case was that nondisclosure agreements don’t work well when there is no crime. This meant they were relegated to the old threatening approach of: “take the deal or we will destroy your career”. They probably figured they could solve 2 problems with one approach. They could scare Kearney into leaving; while at the same time scare everyone else into not questioning their commands and serving as good robots. Let’s see how well that worked out. Thus far we have Boulanger, Moliterno and Karpf leaving the scene of the crime; KMSF secrets reaching the front pages of the local newspaper multiple times; the Press Gainey survey embarrassment; ongoing court battles with Kearney, Hatemi and the Attorney General; and more quality physicians leaving the hospital than you can shake a stick at. If I were Capilouto I would get me a new General Council, because the one he currently has appears to be single-handedly bringing down the university hospital. Add this new sexual offender crisis and you might want to include the university in that assessment.

9/26/2016 05:29:25 pm

Thanks for the comments Rosie and Judge Judy.

Dad

9/28/2016 03:59:45 am

Now here's a fun one. My son, who attends UK, asked me if I thought Capilouto would reduce his tuition increase now that the state's Supreme Court blocked Bevin's 2% cut to the universities? I told him no way, because they need that money to cover his pay raise and all the legal entanglements they have gotten themselves into lately.

9/28/2016 04:04:57 am

Thanks for the comment Dad. As they might have put it in La Jolla, I think you are "right on dude" with that answer.

Reality

9/28/2016 06:27:44 pm

Universities are the next bubble.

Presidents, boards and administrators are spending cheap money on the backs of students via low interest government loans. In addition to tuition, they receive state subsidies, low interest rate bonds, grants and research funding, athletic revenue, merchandise sales, parking fees, endowments, real estate returns, alumni donations, corporate sponsorships, etc. It's amazing they find ways to spend it all. Yet, they certainly do. So much so that they resort to raising tuition year after year. It won't take much of a hit to the economy to adversely affect all these factors, but the debt and expenses will largely remain. Lucky us, the tax payer will be holding the bill. Not to mention the students burdened with loans that won't even be forgiven through bankruptcy.

If this blogs still around I can't wait to say I told you so.

9/29/2016 03:38:21 am

Thanks for the comment Reality. I agree, higher education has definitely become big business. The tough part for these graduates with their large student loans is that the job market for college graduates is becoming very competitive. Finding a job in ones field of study as a science major is rough, but as a liberal arts major it can be monumental. Furthermore, with the cost of living and the age of retirement going up, it might be awhile before it gets any better. It is an interesting dilemma.

The Mole

9/30/2016 09:52:34 am

Had to unretire again to send you this link to UKHC's "Leadership Week". Make sure you have a sick bag at the ready if you dare to click on it.

https://ukhealthcare.mc.uky.edu/en/Managers%20Resources/UKHC%202016%20Leadership%20Week.pdf

9/30/2016 09:56:56 am

Also, not that one of the TED style talks on "respect" is from Kearney backstabber Andrew Bernard.

9/30/2016 02:59:24 pm

Thanks for joining us once again The Mole and for this URL. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, I am unable to access it. Hopefully others will be able to. I can only guess that this is part of their response to the horrible Press Gainey survey results. Their Ted Talk cure to all of the physician concerns in the hospital.

It is rather interesting how some have opted to drink of the Kool-Aid. Let's see, Dr. Bernard was trained by Dr. Kearney, is a recipient of the "Paul A. Kearney MD Endowed Chair in Trauma Surgery" and has claimed to be Dr. Kearney's friend. He then served on the original committee that unanimously voted to revoke Dr. Kearney's patient privileges, change the locks on the door to his office, remove his hard drive and personal information from his computer, bar him from entering the campus, bar him from conversing with any hospital employees, bar all hospital employees from talking with him, bar him from his tenured faculty duties of teaching and service, and declare him a threat to the entire university campus. For this small favor he was promoted to Head of Trauma Surgery, placed on the KMSF Board of Directors and given Dr. Kearney's office. Hmmm, with friends like this who needs enemies. The things some folks are willing to do for money.

Benedict Arnold

9/30/2016 05:21:24 pm

Andrew Bernard was so miserable a few months ago that he interviewed for a job in Cincinnati. Reportedly Karpf begged him to stay and "gave him an offer he couldn't refuse." Current Kentucky.com reporting a salary of $485,000. Will be interesting to see what the data shows next year. However, it should be noted that this salary data does not include benefits, RVU based bonuses, and other KMFS sponsored fringe benefits.

9/30/2016 06:01:24 pm

Maybe that link can only be accessed from within UK?

If you are really feeling brave you can watch a live stream of it here

http://livestream.com/accounts/10187414/events/6264514

Andrew Bernard has proven himself to be an ungrateful student and friend.

9/30/2016 06:24:00 pm

Thank you Benedict Arnold and The Mole for your comments. I guess it is as someone once said, "as you make your bed, you must lie in it."

Thanks for the live stream URL The Mole. My internet is barely working at present, so maybe later I can access it. Sorry about the paraphrasing, but I just like to keep it PG.

10/1/2016 07:58:38 am

I heard that Bernard was considering getting out of town for "personal" reasons. Whatever the case, this illustrates another one of the major problems at UK which is that people can be "bought" simply by giving them large salaries and meaningless leadership positions.

10/1/2016 09:35:35 am

Thanks The Mole for your comment. I agree, the senior administration in the hospital appear to prefer to buy loyalty rather than earn it. They also have been known to use intimidation tactics in controlling the masses. Something like the old, "you can easily be replaced" or "be warned participating in this can cost you your job" have been mentioned previously. These two they like to use on people they want to drive out of the hospital or maybe residents and fellows who can't fight back.

Inside Man

10/2/2016 05:10:32 pm

For the record: ACB is and has always been and ardent Kearney supporter. He was and is President of the MSEC at UK. He refused to sign the original suspension letter against his friend and mentor Kearney in January of 2015. CMO Boulanger removed him from the disciplinary process and he was unable to speak on his mentor's behalf. The fix was in and ACB was a helpless pawn.

10/3/2016 04:29:49 am

Thank you for the comment Inside Man. I stand corrected. I see at the 2 Medical Staff Executive meetings (January 29, 2015 and February 5, 2015):
https://www.uky.edu/Legal/files/Contracts/MSEC%20Minutes%201%2029%2015.pdf
https://www.uky.edu/Legal/files/Contracts/MSEC%20Minutes%202%205%2015_Redacted.pdf

that imposed these extreme sanctions against Dr. Kearney, Dr. Bernard is listed as “Recusal”. So my apologies to Dr. Bernard for including him in this reported “unanimous consent” of the actions to be taken. I also see several other attendees at these meeting that should probably have recused themselves due to personal history and conflicts of interest, but of course they didn’t, most probably because of personal history and conflicts. It is also pretty clear that the actions taken were predetermined and that these meetings in the absence of any representation by the accused, were pretty much sanctioning meetings.

Finally, I would like to point out that all of the information provided to the MSEC, plus much more, were sent by the university lawyers to the State Board of Licensure in what I am certain was an attempt to minimally get outside ratification of the extreme measures taken against Dr. Kearney. This information is available through public records request and I was provided a copy of it. Unfortunately for the university lawyers this blew up in their face. After assigning an investigator to comprehensively look into these charges, this committee could find “insufficient evidence of a violation to warrant a complaint”. I am certain they had concerns, like many others, with respect to the credibility of the information provided, especially when compared to what was in Dr. Kearney’s official personnel file.

Friendship 101

10/3/2016 09:46:36 am

I feel certain that there was nothing Andrew Bernard could have done in these MSEC meetings that would have had any impact on their final outcome, but his absence meant that there was absolutely no representation or advocate for Kearney in these meetings. Of course that is exactly what Cliff Iler, Boulanger and this committee wanted. They definitely did not want someone there to question their findings, nor some of their data that included interviews of cherry picked individuals that might have an axe to grind with Kearney. These people were not even under oath to tell the truth, and Kearney had no legal representative present to question the individuals. Nor the fact that a number of these “damning interviews” cannot be found in Kearney’s official personnel file. Finally, there was nobody there to challenge the severity of the ridiculous punishment regime Iler and Boulanger cooked up. I believe this is where Bernard could have been of some assistance to his friend. The punishment was so over-the-top that I think anyone could have come up with arguments against it. I mean, banning a well-respected tenured faculty member from setting foot on campus because he used fowl language in a trauma ward (the only acceptable excuse for imposing a penalty of this kind considering everything else occurred years and decades ago) is absolutely preposterous. There was no evidence in any form that provided even a suggestion that this individual who has dedicated his life to saving lives (and has a pretty good official record for that) could in any way be a threat to anyone on or off campus. So in some ways Andrew Bernard chose the easy way out of all this by avoiding participation in these meetings. Sometimes being a friend involves more than silence.

10/3/2016 03:11:44 pm

Thanks for the comment Friendship 101. Life is nothing but a continuous stream of decisions.

10/3/2016 05:55:50 am

I'll just leave this here...

Four stars & ranked among the top 25 AMCs!

Colleagues:

We have excellent news to share. Your performance has earned us 4 stars (out of 5) and a ranking for quality among the nation’s top 25 academic medical centers (AMCs). Overall, we are ranked 21st among the more than 100 AMCs that submit data included in the study. Our new ranking was recently released in the Vizient 2016 Quality & Accountability (Q&A) Study.

UK HealthCare has participated in the Q&A Study since 2005 when it was first launched by the University HealthSystem Consortium (UHC). In 2015, UHC joined others under the Vizient brand, the largest member-driven health care performance improvement company in the country. In the years since we first participated in the Q&A Study, we’ve been one of the recipients of the organization’s Rising Star Award for the level of our quality improvement.

This result for 2016 is truly gratifying given the complexity of our patients and the extraordinary volumes we have been managing during the past year.

Already as an academic medical center we offer a level of care unmatched in the region. This study confirms that we are well on our way to achieving a place among the best academic medical centers in the nation – and the credit belongs to each one of us.

10/3/2016 03:53:19 pm

Thanks for the comment The Mole. I could not find this top 25 ranking online (they only listed the top 13). Furthermore, what exactly is being measured here and how was it measured?

Outside Woman

10/4/2016 04:08:29 am

It would seem to me that those that taketh away could also giveth. How about the MSEC meeting and voting to return Kearney's patient and teaching privileges? With Bernard as President of MSEC it should be a shoo-in. Just don't invite Karpf, Thro, Iler and deBeer to the meeting. If they're as tired of this stuff as I am they just might decide it is time to move on to more important things.

10/4/2016 11:38:52 am

Thanks Outside Woman for your comment. I like the thought but I am not going to hold my breath on it.

10/5/2016 12:34:07 pm

Its Leadership Week at UKHC!!! Check out the inspiring program!

DAY 1 — MONDAY, OCTOBER 10, 2016 Pavilion A Auditorium
8:15 - 8:30 AM Opening Remarks
Michael Karpf, MD UK HealthCare
8:30 - 9:30 AM “State of the Union” – Where are we? How are we doing?
Mark Birdwhistell, Craig Collins,
Robert DiPaola, MD, & Bo Cofield, DrPH UK HealthCare
9:45 - 10:00 AM The Power of Shared Values – TED-Style Talks
Sarah Heck UK HealthCare
10:00 - 3:30 PM Leadership Values at the Core
Chris Evans, Ph.D. Center for Creative Leadership
10:00 - 11:00 AM Keynote Are you a valuable leader?
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM Breakout Session 1 Identifying personal values and exploring their significance in your life
12:00 - 1:00 PM Luncheon Pavilion A Lobby, boxed lunches provided
1:00 – 2:00 PM Breakout Session 2 Action Planning: Building a values-based leadership philosophy
2:15 – 3:30 PM Breakout Session 3 Making values go viral
DAY 2 — WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2016 Pavilion A Auditorium
8:15 - 10:30 AM Valuing Diversity – Leadership Principles of Practice
Rosalyn Taylor O’Neale Cook Ross
10:45 - 11:55 AM Organizational Values – TED-Style Talks
UK HealthCare Values Team Taskforce
10:45 - 11:05 AM
11:05 - 11:15 AM
11:15 - 11:25 AM
11:25 - 11:45 AM
11:45 - 11:55 AM
Respect Andrew Bernard, MD, & Liz Shemwell
Innovation Michael Dobbs, MD
Teamwork Jessica Beeson
Compassion Seth Curtis & Paula Bailey, MD
Diversity Saghi Tasori Partovi
DAY 3 — FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2016 Pavilion A Auditorium
8:30 - 12:00 PM The Power of Leadership Presence, From Intention to Influence
and Buy-in to Purpose and Inspiration
Kristi Hedges The Hedges Company
12:00 - 12:15 PM Wrapup – Leader Next Steps and TED-Style Talk – Organizational Values
Colleen Swartz, DNP UK HealthCare
12:15 - 1:30 PM Social Luncheon

10/5/2016 06:06:44 pm

Thank you for the comment and addition The Mole. Sounds real exciting. Unfortunately I wasn't invited. In spite of that, I feel certain this should really jack up those Press Ganey survey scores. Is Kool-Aid being served at anytime during this meeting?

Stujoy

10/5/2016 07:23:09 pm

The worst thing about that agenda...is where are the real leaders? None of those speakers know the first thing about leadership? Where is the head of neurology? Cardiology? Transplant? Cancer? The most successful programs over the last 5 years at UK have been (among others) - cardiology, neurology, cancer, orthopedics...yet, none of those leaders are speaking....

Nonsense

10/6/2016 05:06:00 am

Typical hospital nonsense.

In my experience hospitals with poor admin leadership do things like this or invite Studor Group to gives talk to the masses (sheep). People then view this talk or in many instances are forced to view the talk. In my experience I view the talk and laugh the whole time (silently of course) as I know it's a bunch of crap put on for the sheep.

The real leaders of course recognize that it's nonsense and that things will go back to exactly the way they were after the talk or after Studor Group leaves. Nothing really gets done or changes other than the hospital admin doing this as a way to try to change the sheep's perception of the hospital. In the end it's a colossal waste of time put on by admin because they either don't want to or don't know how to change the culture and perception of their hospital.

That's my experience. This is just more of the same. Physicians talk with their feet mainly. My sources tell me the feet have been loud at UK.

Minor Rewards

10/6/2016 11:37:54 am

The more "successful" programs are those run by people who are not administration stooges and at least in the case of cardiology and cancer are also proper physician scientist academics who were given some responsibility to run and improve their programs. The rest of these ersatz leaders typify the UK culture where "leadership roles" are given to people as rewards (and as a reason to jack up their salaries), and not because they are qualified or because there is a real job to do that requires leadership skills and accountability. I don't know what we as a faculty can do about this. I have personally spent most of the past 10 years fighting this culture in large part by calling BS when I see it and refusing to deal with these kinds of "leader-underlings". But this is very wearing, has made me at best someone who is disenfranchised and at worst someone who some administrators actively work to keep down, despite having made substantial contributions to UK's apparently remarkably collaborative research environment. A friend/colleague of mine has given up on UK and is leaving for a top public university (a bit like the place I used to work). This top public university is going to replace its chancellor and there is an up swell of faculty activism to support the election of a colleague who has held a high level executive position in the federal government and is now a respected academic at said institution with a reputation for compassion and fairness. Thats what I call faculty governance. Here all we have are Paul Kearney, Davy Jones and this blog. If this was happening at UK we'd just end up with someone who the BOT appoint probably on the basis of having successfully run a bunch of KFC franchises or car dealerships in eastern KY. UK is broken and the sad thing is that because of the inherent insularity of the place and the inability/unwillingness to have a responsible meritocratic culture of leadership (which in turn is a result of the lack of money and need to keep a tight rein on anything that might cost money) most people don't even realize how screwed up it all is.

10/6/2016 11:46:16 am

Thanks Stujoy, Nonsense and Minor Rewards for your comments. Do any of you have any constructive suggestions for fixes of these concerns?

10/6/2016 12:08:28 pm

Of course.

The University President would need to regain control of the hospital enterprise. Next identify a few (1-3) physician leaders who aren't engrained into the current political BS at UK. Then use their insight to start cleaning house... not by firing people necessarily but by removing people who are in positions they shouldn't be in.

Also being completely transparent including the KMSF.

And most of all empowering the newly appointed leaders in each division and department to actually (gasp!) lead and move their respective programs forward.

Of course all of this will never happen and is merely a dream with the current middle to upper level administration. The handling of one Dr. Kearney is proof of this statement.

10/6/2016 05:16:31 pm

Thanks Nonsense for the suggestions. I like them. Like you I suspect that there is only a very small chance of things like this ever happening, but I like to dream, it beats the alternative. I suspect that's obvious, or I wouldn't be spending my good reading and golf time on this blog.

Hula Hoop

10/7/2016 09:43:16 am

I heard a rumor that the IBUseless is being phased out. Isn't that the reorganization brainchild we paid PWC 500,000 to 1 million dollars to come up with? It was a great pretense for downsizing the staff population while at the same time upsizing our administrator population. Assembly line medical staff work. Rumors have it that they are closing it down because of work-related fatalities, "workers dying of boredom". That and the fact that they are also loosing staff because in their effort to reduce payroll they have used the PWC reorganization mandate as an excuse to reduce staff numbers and simply increase the workload of the staff they held onto. The arrogant thinking of course being, "they should just be happy to have a job." Brilliant.

10/7/2016 02:17:30 pm

Thanks Hula Hoop for the comment. I have not heard anything about this, but then again I have not heard anything good about the IBU. The PWC folks occupied the offices right next to mine over in the research building and they seemed to spend a lot of time in those offices and the small conference room down the hall. I had trouble envisioning how these folks who have never worked in a hospital could be categorized as experts in how a hospital should be run. I believe PWC was bought out by IBM, so perhaps they viewed hospital employees as robots or pieces of machinery and went from there. Anyway, I hope you are right, because as I said, I have yet to hear anything good about the IBU, and that's from both the people that use it and the people that work in it. I just feel sorry for those that either lost their job or quit there job because of it.

Grape Vine

10/8/2016 05:36:07 am

Reportedly, department heads have recently met with administration to discuss restructuring the RVU bonus system. It been said, "the current model is unsustainable." Sounds like trouble in paradise. Oddly enough, those physicians currently benefiting the most from the current system are a bit upset.

Anyone know more about this?

Big in Japan

10/8/2016 04:13:18 pm

Apparently Dean DiPaoloa spoke with Rick Lofgren (remember) him at a hospital CEO conference without knowing who he was and told Rick that he would be replacing Karpf at EVPHA. Of course Lofgren then just told the people at UK that he is still friends with about this. If DiPaola really does think he is going to get this job that might explain why he has not done anything at all yet to make any changes whatsoever to anything about the operation of the COM. The long term plan is clearly not to have departments and divisions and to organize all of the clinical operations as "service lines" while having biomedical research field associated "institutes". This plan would certainly be consistent with the inability/unwilingness to do anything about the basic science department mess.

10/11/2016 04:25:54 am

Thanks Grapevine and Big in Japan for keeping the blog going in my absence. With respect to the RVU system, incentivising quantity of healthcare always seemed, at least to me, a major challenge to the hippocratic oath that is supposed to be the foundation of the healthcare profession.

DiPaola as the next EVPHA was predicted earlier by one of our commenters. It would not be surprising, because this move from Cancer Center Director at Rutgers to Dean at UK always seemed like a lateral move, at best. Furthermore, he seemed well respected at Rutgers, and appears to have little to no history with Kentucky. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. One would think that his strengths in translational research would be better served as a college dean than as a hospital administrator, but who knows. When I was at UK, Michael Karpf ran the College of Medicine as much as any of the Deans that he appointed……..., I mean that were recruited.

Hippocratical

10/11/2016 11:36:35 am

DiPaola will be made EVPHA unless Cappy and Tiny Tim can find someone else they trust and think can do a better job. The goal here is to gain control over UKHC so they can divert the profits away from Mike Karpf’s pet projects to their own even less well considered plan to make UK “better”. I don’t think he really wants to be Dean because many of the biggest messes can’t be fixed and these kinds of people want to be associated with success not just running failed chair searches and appointing awful internal people all the time.

Also since you are obviously familiar with the Hippocratic oath you would know that it is pretty clear that training doctors should be done “without fee or indenture” yet you also go on and on about how much money the COM brings in in tuition which of course is part of why doctors expect to be paid for their services. Or perhaps you didn’t read that bit?

10/11/2016 04:28:18 pm

Thank you Hippocratical for your comment. It will be interesting to see how all of this new EVPHA recruitment plays out.

I am not sure where you are going with your insult on my Hippocratic Oath comment. To begin with, I have never stated that physicians should not be paid for their services. In fact, I have iterated many times on this blog that “I really do not care about the physician salaries and bonuses”. It is truly not a concern of mine because I fully recognize the competitive nature of the business and the need to offer competitive wages. My voiced concern is simply a reflection of what I was hearing aired in Faculty Council meetings where “physician” members were concerned that RVUs and their relationship to bonuses could be stressing quantity of care over quality of care.

Secondly, below I have pasted in the modern version of this Hippocratic Oath, and I can find nowhere in this oath that stipulates that physicians should work for free, nor anything about tuition.

Hippocratic Oath

I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.

I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. Above all, I must not play at God.

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

I will prevent disease whenever I can, for prevention is preferable to cure.

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.

10/11/2016 06:02:41 pm

There is now a Facebook post called 'Save Dr. Kearney.' All are welcome!

10/11/2016 06:39:38 pm

Thanks Inside Man for this comment. I think that site is here: https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=save%20dr%20kearney

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