Once again, for those new to this blog site, at present there are 19 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.
* Note: To see PDF Documents cited in this post simply click on the underlined segment
A commenter at the end of the previous Press-Ganey Survey Post noted that at a recent party held for the Acute Care Surgery Faculty and graduating Trauma Fellows, UK Marketing was employed to do a photo shoot. This was, as I am told, not for any commercial purpose, but simply for commemoration of the event and to provide these graduating students with something to take away from the party. As was noted by the blog commenter, the graduating students chose to invite their recently ostracized physician instructor, Dr. Kearney. This unfortunately seemed to irritate the Department of Surgery Chair, Dr. Jay Zwischenberger, who then in an attempt to exert his authority over the students and presumably punish them, to quote the blog commenter: “opted to deprive the attending Fellows of their final physical memories of their shared experiences in UK Trauma, and chose to confiscate the photos from this photo shoot.”
One can only presume that this was done out of malice towards Dr. Kearney, a physician faculty member in the Department of Surgery. This would appear to be just a continuation of the never-ending harassment regimen implemented by the College of Surgery administration, the hospital administration, the university administration and the university lawyers in their attempt to minimally silence but preferably eliminate this tenured faculty member from the university. I can only guess what bothers Dr. Zwischenberger in this picture confiscation tactic, is the simple fact that the vast majority of students, along with a majority of hospital physicians, a majority of hospital staff, a majority of College faculty and even a majority of university faculty are not buying into this contrived vendetta.
Therefore, as a simple service to those students who worked and learned under Dr. Kearney (in spite of the administration’s earlier declaration that he is “a dangerous person”), I have posted below a photo from the 2016 Chief Surgical Resident Roast that many of you attended. This photo can also be downloaded should you wish here (Kearney's Kids). Lastly, if anyone else should have personal photos that they may wish to share from the earlier celebration at which Dr. Zwischenberger chose to confiscate the UK Marketing photos, simply email them to me (dnoonan48@gmail.com) and I will add them to the download.
In the big picture, this attitude of the Chair of the Department of Surgery is totally consistent with the results of the Press-Ganey Employee and Physician Engagement Survey discussed in the previous post, wherein UK Healthcare ranked the worst in physician satisfaction and the Department of Surgery ranked the worst of the worst. I remind you this is out of 1200 hospitals and over 60,000 physicians. Finally, this attitude also helps to explain why the Division of General Surgery alone has lost more physician faculty in the past 4 years than in the previous 25 years. This would include:
David Vargas MD - Colorectal -Now at Ochsner Clinic New Orleans
Heather Wright MD - Breast Surgeon -Now in private practice Florida
Shaun Mckenzie MD - Oncology -Now is Austin Texas
Shane O’Keefe MD -Vascular -Private Practice Bowling Green Kentucky
Dan Kenady MD - Oncology - Hazard Kentucky
Ehab Sorial MD - Vascular -San Francisco
Ching-Wie Tzeng MD - Oncology -Leaving for MD Anderson
Levi Procter MD - Trauma/Critical Care - Leaving for VCU
Jesse Goddard MD - Trauma - Leaving for Penn State York PA
Cherry Song MD - Trauma - Leaving for Private Practice Trauma
Paul A Kearney MD - Trauma – Driven out by the administration
As one surgeon put it, “physicians speak with their feet”. When a hospital administration fails to treat its physicians with respect, what more can you expect. Word gets out and recruitment also becomes very challenging.
Late addition of a photo anonymously sent to me of the group picture celebrating Trauma Fellow Dr. Cherry Song's graduation from the program (see here also).
* Note: To see PDF Documents cited in this post simply click on the underlined segment
A commenter at the end of the previous Press-Ganey Survey Post noted that at a recent party held for the Acute Care Surgery Faculty and graduating Trauma Fellows, UK Marketing was employed to do a photo shoot. This was, as I am told, not for any commercial purpose, but simply for commemoration of the event and to provide these graduating students with something to take away from the party. As was noted by the blog commenter, the graduating students chose to invite their recently ostracized physician instructor, Dr. Kearney. This unfortunately seemed to irritate the Department of Surgery Chair, Dr. Jay Zwischenberger, who then in an attempt to exert his authority over the students and presumably punish them, to quote the blog commenter: “opted to deprive the attending Fellows of their final physical memories of their shared experiences in UK Trauma, and chose to confiscate the photos from this photo shoot.”
One can only presume that this was done out of malice towards Dr. Kearney, a physician faculty member in the Department of Surgery. This would appear to be just a continuation of the never-ending harassment regimen implemented by the College of Surgery administration, the hospital administration, the university administration and the university lawyers in their attempt to minimally silence but preferably eliminate this tenured faculty member from the university. I can only guess what bothers Dr. Zwischenberger in this picture confiscation tactic, is the simple fact that the vast majority of students, along with a majority of hospital physicians, a majority of hospital staff, a majority of College faculty and even a majority of university faculty are not buying into this contrived vendetta.
Therefore, as a simple service to those students who worked and learned under Dr. Kearney (in spite of the administration’s earlier declaration that he is “a dangerous person”), I have posted below a photo from the 2016 Chief Surgical Resident Roast that many of you attended. This photo can also be downloaded should you wish here (Kearney's Kids). Lastly, if anyone else should have personal photos that they may wish to share from the earlier celebration at which Dr. Zwischenberger chose to confiscate the UK Marketing photos, simply email them to me (dnoonan48@gmail.com) and I will add them to the download.
In the big picture, this attitude of the Chair of the Department of Surgery is totally consistent with the results of the Press-Ganey Employee and Physician Engagement Survey discussed in the previous post, wherein UK Healthcare ranked the worst in physician satisfaction and the Department of Surgery ranked the worst of the worst. I remind you this is out of 1200 hospitals and over 60,000 physicians. Finally, this attitude also helps to explain why the Division of General Surgery alone has lost more physician faculty in the past 4 years than in the previous 25 years. This would include:
David Vargas MD - Colorectal -Now at Ochsner Clinic New Orleans
Heather Wright MD - Breast Surgeon -Now in private practice Florida
Shaun Mckenzie MD - Oncology -Now is Austin Texas
Shane O’Keefe MD -Vascular -Private Practice Bowling Green Kentucky
Dan Kenady MD - Oncology - Hazard Kentucky
Ehab Sorial MD - Vascular -San Francisco
Ching-Wie Tzeng MD - Oncology -Leaving for MD Anderson
Levi Procter MD - Trauma/Critical Care - Leaving for VCU
Jesse Goddard MD - Trauma - Leaving for Penn State York PA
Cherry Song MD - Trauma - Leaving for Private Practice Trauma
Paul A Kearney MD - Trauma – Driven out by the administration
As one surgeon put it, “physicians speak with their feet”. When a hospital administration fails to treat its physicians with respect, what more can you expect. Word gets out and recruitment also becomes very challenging.
Late addition of a photo anonymously sent to me of the group picture celebrating Trauma Fellow Dr. Cherry Song's graduation from the program (see here also).
