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Dr. Capilouto's Deposition Part II

11/4/2016

20 Comments

 
Once again, for those new to this blog site, at present there are 34 posts on the blog and each has its own set of comments. To read the comments you have to hit the word "Comments" at the beginning or end of the post. Somewhat confusing is that when you bring up the comments for a specific post it eliminates the other posts from the screen. To bring the other posts back up simply go back to the top of the page and click on Blog. Feel free to comment should you wish. No email address is required to make a comment so anonymity is strong. Due to some previous abuse of this right to anonymously comment, I have had to include an approval option, but I try to approve within 24 hours. 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.

Once a job is once begun never quit until it’s done. Whether it be big or small, do it right or not at all. As Mi Amigo promised here is part 2 of Dr. Capilouto's deposition in the Dr. Paul Kearney lawsuit. I should note, that upon reading and transferring it to the blog, I added a couple of documents that I thought would help. These additions are in italics. Finally once again, Dr. Kearneys lawyer’s questions (Q) are in green and Dr. Capilouto’s answers (A) are in red.
 
Dr. Noonan, here is Part II of president Capilouto’s deposition in the Kearney vs. UK lawsuit. This occurred about a week after the first one, is only 72 pages long and has some redundancy with the first.  The same people were present and president Capilouto appears a bit more prepared (rehearsed) for this one in that the number of “I don’t remember” or “I can’t remember” statements seem to appear a bit more often. Furthermore, president Capilouto appears to have mastered the art of not answering questions by simply avoiding the question with some long winded justification for his innocence in this whole thing.
 
-      Okay, Part 2 of President Capilouto’s deposition begins with a revisit to the university’s organizational chart. Then Dr. Kearney’s lawyer revisited Dr. Capilouto’s first knowledge of the alleged misbehavior issues, termed the first meeting.
 
Q When this matter was first brought to your attention, it was brought by general
counsel William Thro; is that correct?
 
A Correct.
 
Q Do you recall what he told you about Dr. Kearney?
 
A I just -- my best recollection is that the Chief Medical Officer had made a decision to put Dr. Kearney on leave; that there had been an issue involving a patient, and that there was also an issue involving a recent lecture that Dr. Kearney had given, and that there was a letter in the last couple of years in which Dr. Kearney's unprofessional behavior had been documented in the form of corrective action.
 
Q Did the discussion -- was anyone else present at -- during this time?
 
A I don't think so.
 
Q And in the same vein, did Mr. Thro discuss with you any pattern of unprofessional behavior that was attendant to Dr. Kearney?
 
A Only to the extent that there was a letter that had documented previous, you know, behavior.
 
Q And did you see that letter?
 
A I don't remember –

-       Then came questions about Dr. Capilouto’s 2nd meeting on this matter.
 

Q And on that subsequent -- we'll call it the second meeting, just for the sake of being obvious -- were you given more information about Dr. Kearney?
 
A I don't recall getting detailed information. I -- most of what I learned about Dr. Kearney was after the decisions had been made by the Board. This last hearing, that's when I looked into the hearing panel and that kind of information where more detail was shed on this.
 
Q Returning to, and again, I'll label it the second meeting, who attended that second meeting?
 
A I don't know. It may have been Mr. Thro and my Chief of Staff may have been standing there.
 
Q And your Chief of Staff is who, please?
 
A Bill Swinford.
 
Q So I take it from your response that no record or memoranda or notes were made of either the first meeting or the second meeting --
 
A No, sir.
 
Q -- is that correct? And any notes made by yourself or anyone on your behalf of any of the meetings prior to the time the Healthcare Committee returned Dr. Kearney to work as a full tenured professor?
 
A No, sir.
 
Q And I take it you were advised as to the process that would be followed; correct?
 
A Yes, sir.
 
Q And again, by Mr. Thro?
 
A Yes.
 
Q So Mr. Thro was, for lack of a better expression, one of the driving forces behind the disciplinary action; is that correct?
 
A He was the person that informed me of the process that would be followed.
 
-     The questions then went on to learn who else Dr. Capilouto discussed this problem with and the bottom line is basically nobody else but Mr. Thro. They then moved on to the decision to “negotiate a deal” with Dr. Kearney. This questioning degenerated into questions about whom he consulted on this (again only Thro), where the money for the payoff would be coming from and exactly when all of this was first decided upon.  Establishing a timeline appears to be the main objective in this drawn out questioning.
 
Q So at that time, and I'm taking it this is in October of 2014, you had made the decision based on the information passed on to you by general counsel that Dr. Kearney should leave the University; correct?
 
A I made the decision that we should negotiate with Dr. Kearney about his leaving the University.
 
Q But if you'll look at that sentence –
 
A Uh-huh.
 
Q -- "negotiate an agreement" –
 
A Uh-huh.
 
Q -- it reads, "Negotiate an agreement where Dr. Kearney would leave the University"?
 
A Correct.
 
Q So he had two choices, correct, leave or negotiate?
 
A Negotiate to leave.
 
Q So he actually had one choice. Either way, he was gone from the University; correct?
 
A No.
 
Q Someone must have made at this particular time, in the fall of 2014, that Dr. Kearney was going to leave the University?
 
A I don't understand what you're saying.
 
Q From this answer that was given on your behalf, someone in the fall of 2014 had to have made the decision that Dr. Kearney was going to leave the University?
 
A That would be premature.
 
Q And the reason you say it would be premature?
 
A Is because the -- the – the process -- and here we're -- at this stage we're only talking about his medical privileges. That process had not --
 
Q Even begun?
 
A Even begun, right.
 
Q So when you say be premature, so if Dr. Kearney was given the ultimatum to settle or have his career ruined, that would be an improper characterization of the whole process; correct?
 
A I don't understand exactly what you are –
 
Q You in no way gave approval for someone on your behalf to tell Dr. Kearney that if he didn't take a settlement his career would be ruined?
 
A I -- I wasn't trying to ruin Dr. Kearney's career. I was trying to negotiate a separation, so it's that simple.
 
Q Thank you. When it references in this answer that was given, "Dr. Kearney's previous record of misbehavior," that's more than just a letter of reprimand, is it not?
 
A You know, as I said earlier, you know, I have that initial sort of this is what's happened. I asked to -- you know, for somebody to brief me on these medical bylaws and the process that is followed. I would imagine there was more discussion, but I did not -- I didn't examine Dr. Kearney's file. You know, I just heard that there had been a pattern, that there had been a history.
 
Q When you heard that there had been a pattern or there had been a history, I take it from your earlier responses that came from general counsel William Thro?
 
A Right, yes.
 
Q Am I correct?
 
A Correct.
 
Q Did it come from anyone else?
 
A No.
 
Q And as you've emphatically stated on several occasions, you relied on what general counsel passed on to you that there had been a pattern of unprofessional conduct?
 
A Including numerous letters in his file about his behavior.
 
Q Thank you. And had no reason in your position as president of the University to question that information?
 
A As it was described to me, that was enough information to make a decision to negotiate a separation.
 
-      They then moved into discussions of the Board of Trustees Fair Hearing Panel wherein the Board upheld the revoking of Dr. Kearney’s patient privileges but returned Dr. Kearney’s tenured professor privileges (document_12.pdf).  
 
-       They started off this conversation with Medical Staff Executive Committee report that this Fair Hearing Panel based its decision on.
 

Q If you would read the next sentence, please, President Capilouto.
 
A "As viewed by the Committee, multiple warnings, leaves of absence, remediation programs, written reprimands and action plans had done little to eliminate the problem."
 
Q And the problem that that refers to is the unprofessional behavior, is it not?
 
A Yes, sir.
 
-      They beat this into the ground for awhile with Dr. Kearney’s lawyer simply trying to get Dr. Capilouto to acknowledge the simple fact that each of these violations (multiple warnings, leaves of absence, remediation programs, written reprimands and action plans) were projected as having occurred multiple times as it is clearly written in the Medical Staff Executive Committee's report. I feel certain Dr. Capilouto knew exactly where he was going with this and so he simply talked around the questions.
 
Q But the suggestion is, at the least on Page 11, that the Medical Staff Executive Committee was presented with that information; is that correct?
 
A The Medical Staff Executive Committee is, I assume, aware of these things, but again, I wasn't part of the Medical Staff Executive Committee deliberation and so forth.
 
Q No, I understand that. You've made that clear.
 
A Okay.
 
Q We are just looking at what the Fair Hearing Panel rendered in terms of a decision, are we not?
 
A Yes, sir.
 
Q Thank you. Now, if that information that was presented to the Medical Staff Executive Committee was, in fact, false, then they couldn't render an appropriate decision, could they?
 
-       Again refusing to simply answer these yes/no questions, Dr. Capilouto talked around them, or simply playing dumb. Dr. Kearney’s lawyer then produced the minutes of the MSEC meeting of February 5, 2015 (see MSEC Minutes 2-15). As has been noted previously on the blog, these minutes are very superficial and no recording of this meeting was ever made.
 
Q President Capilouto, have -- you've had an opportunity to review the minutes of the February 5th Medical Staff Executive Committee meeting?
 
A Yes, sir.
 
Q And it lists, does it not, Items 1 through 21 as the documents that were presented to the Medical Staff Executive Committee, does it not?
 
A Yes, sir.
 
Q And of those documents that are listed, there's not a single document that shows a leave of absence, is there?
 
A I -- I don't know what's contained in all of these letters, sir.
 
Q But in looking at the title of the documents, just from the title, is there a single document entitled "Leave of Absence"?
 
A No, but I don't know what's in the letters.
 
Q I understand that. Is there any documents entitled "Remediation Programs"?
 
A No, it just says the letters. It doesn't discuss -- well, there's a written reprimand and action plan.
 
Q And that's one written reprimand and one action plan attended thereto; correct?
 
A Yes. But again, I don't know the contents of all of this.
 
Q I understand that.
 
A All right.
 
Q And, in fact, above that, the only performance evaluation presented in terms of a document is No. 15, the 2012 faculty performance review for Dr. Paul Kearney?
 
A Yes.
 
Q Do you see any other faculty performance reviews that were presented to the Medical Staff Executive Committee?
 
A No. But again, I don't know what's in every one of those letters.
 
Q I understand that. So from what's contained in the minutes of the Medical Staff Executive Committee of February 5th, 2015, we have Item No. 16, which is a single written reprimand and action plan; correct?
 
A Right.
 
Q And we have listed for the calendar year just one faculty performance review for 2012; correct?
 
A Right.
 
Q In fact, reviewing the minutes of the Medical Staff Executive Committee, there's no record as to what the Medical Staff Executive Committee was told about Dr. Kearney other than the list of documents; am I correct in stating that?
 
A There are 21 documents listed here. After review, any questions were discussed
 
Q Let me stop --
 
A I don't know what was in that discussion, sir.
 
Q Thank you. Nor do these minutes reflect that?
 
A I don't know what was discussed.
 
Q Did you know that Dr. Kearney had no resident complaints over his 27-year period?
 
A I don't know that.
 
Q Did you know that he had only one patient complaint in 27 years and that came from Mr. Wilson?
 
A I don't know that.
 
Q Did you know he had zero faculty complaints?
 
A I don't know that.
 
Q Did you know that he had no student complaints over the 27 years except for the one in August of 2014, anonymous student complaint?
 
A I don't know that.
 
Q But if we're to look and pin down this alleged picture of unprofessional behavior, we would look at his performance evaluations where that should surely be reflected, should we not?
 
A I don't know entirely where all of that is captured, but I certainly see in what the Hearing Panel reviewed there was information shared about his behavior.
 
-    They went on about Dr. Kearney’s outstanding performance evaluations that Dr. Capilouto reluctantly had to acknowledge.  They then ventured into Dr. Capilouto’s modifications on the Board of Trustees decision to return Dr. Kearney’s tenured professor privileges.
 
Q But you took it upon yourself to be hands-on after the Healthcare Committee issued a decision returning Dr. Kearney to campus as a tenured professor?
 
A I thought it was appropriate to review the materials.
 
Q And took a more active part in the procedure following that return?
 
A I asked for advice on how we were going to handle that, and to be reasonably informed, I certainly looked through all of the documents.
 
Q And you also set up a committee, did you not?
 
A I didn't set up a committee. I asked Mr. Thro to get people together to determine how we were going to handle this.
 
Q And was that, in fact, done?
 
A Advice was given to me by Mr. Thro, yes.
 
Q Do you know what persons that he gathered together to address that?
 
A You asked me that last time. I haven't checked on it. I think I remember the Dean of Medicine and Chair of Surgery, Chief Medical Officer. Maybe somebody who knew something about accreditation. I'm sorry, I can't remember who he consulted.
 
-       They then jumped into the bogus draft document stuffed into Dr. Kearney’s personnel file.
 
Q This is a draft document, is it not, Mr. President?
 
A That's what it appears to be.
 
Q In fact, it's not signed, is it?
 
A No, sir.
 
Q Did you know that this document had been placed in Dr. Kearney's personnel file at some point in time?
 
A I may have known that. I just don't remember. I can't remember.
 
Q When you say you can't remember and that you may have known that, if you -- if you did, in fact, know it, who would have brought it to your attention?
 
A This may have been part of the materials available to the Committee. I – I remember seeing this somewhere.
 
Q If this, in fact, was presented to the Committee, now are you talking about the Medical Staff Executive Committee or the Fair Hearing Panel?
 
A I don't know, sir.
 
Q If this in fact was presented to the Medical Staff Executive Committee, it would, in fact, be a false document, would it not?
 
A I don't know if it was presented, how it was presented and how it was conveyed.
 
Q In fact, if it was presented to the investigators for the Medical Staff Executive Committee, it's a document that's false in its entirety, is it not?
 
A I don't know that, sir.
 
Q If it, in fact, is false in its entirety, and was, in fact, given to the investigative -- investigative team for the Medical Staff Executive Committee, it should have never been presented to the Medical Staff Executive Committee; isn't that correct?
 
A I don't know, sir.
 
-    From here Dr. Kearney’s lawyer questioned Dr. Capilouto with regards to the official letter that documented that Dr. Kearney’s accusations of Dr. Karpf’s mismanagement of KMSF funds clearly preceded the measures that were taken to silence him (the take the deal or I will ruin your career “negotiations”, the MSEC meetings, the Fair Hearing decision and Dr. Capilouto’s private committee’s modifications of the Fair Hearing Committee’s decision).
 
-    This of course led into the evidence for KMSF financial mismanagement and the Hazard Cardiology fiasco.
 
-    The meeting ended with a direct discussion of Dr. Capilouto’s special committee that took it upon themselves to modify the Board of Trustee’s return of Dr. Kearney’s tenured professor privileges.

 
Q After the Board -- Board of Trustees Healthcare Committee returned Dr. Kearney to work as a tenured professor, that correspondence from Mr. Thro, he's speaking on behalf of the University; correct?
 
A Yes.
 
Q My second question was there was a committee formed, and again, what individual or individuals comprised that committee?
 
A I don't know in the entirety who may have been consulted. I would certainly think people mentioned on the carbon copy, some of those may have been consulted, that they would have been --
 
Q Would you read their -- would you read their names into the record, please?
 
A Tim -- Timothy Tracy, Bill Swinford, Frederick DeBeer, Robert Cofield, Bernard Boulanger, Susan McDowell, Jay Zwischenberger, R. Brett Short, Margaret Pisacano.
 
-       A few more questions were asked about the existence of any written documentation with respect to Dr. Capilouto’s involvement in this meeting, and of course there is none.  At the end of this it sounded like Dr. Kearney’s lawyer may have had a few more questions, but the meeting appeared to abruptly end.
 
Thanks again to Mi Amigo for providing this material. I think these depositions support the theory that this was a totally biased committee of individuals dedicated to driving a tenured faculty physician out of the University of Kentucky. It also suggests that we have at least one and maybe two lawyers working at this university that are a disgrace to their profession. The use of false documentation, threats, a trial without representation and a punishment that is totally beyond their authority, suggests an arrogance and total disregard for the law and profession they were trained in.  If this were a civil court I suspect they would be disbarred.
20 Comments
Lucy
11/5/2016 05:52:42 am

I would be willing to wager that Coach Stoops, coach Calipari and their assistant coaches often use improper and insulting language in their teaching environment. Why isn't Capilouto and Thro going after them?

Reply
Mark P.
11/5/2016 06:21:18 am

What is this? Here you have a physician that has probably saved more lives in critical conditions than any other physician at this university, and the administration of this university is doing everything in its power to destroy his career. Trauma wards are often combat zones where mistakes can cost lives. If you add to that the parameter of trying to teach the art of emergency care I know from experience that sometimes the most effective teaching in these situations needs to have in it something that is going to leave an impression. As pointed out above, the best athletic coaches incorporate this component of verbal instructions laced with rudimentary language to get their point across. Personally, if someone is saving my life I could care less what language they use to make that happen. If you are reading this President Capilouto, do the university and the state a favor and return this physician's patient and teaching privileges. Get rid of the lawyers and earn your inflated salary. For at least once in your tenure stand on your own two feet and be presidential.

Reply
Jude Law
11/5/2016 07:43:42 am

President Capilouto should probably be very good at these depositions. As noted in an earlier blog post, while Provost at UAB he was involved in a couple of legal cases. Here is a quote from an article written about one of those cases. This is a case where an Assistant Provost (Dr. Rosalia Scripa) working under Capilouto, complained that female faculty were being discriminated against.

“In 2000, Scripa was named associate provost and eventually became principal investigator on a National Science Foundation grant on the advancement of women in math and sciences.

The grant application asked for data on faculty salaries, and while researching this topic, Scripa saw that female professors in the schools of business and social and behavioral sciences were being paid less than their male counterparts.

Scripa complained to UAB Provost Eli Capilouto about the pay discrepancy. But she says Capilouto and the head of human resources (who is unnamed in the article) asked her to use pairs of male and female faculty members with similar backgrounds "to see if they would show the salary data in a more favorable light."

Soon afterward, the lawsuit states, Capilouto called a meeting with Scripa and told her she was "not well suited" for her job as associate provost and was being removed. She was asked to "sign a letter stating she was stepping down for family and personal reasons.”

Just another bad attempt to "negotiate a deal". This 'sign a letter stating you are stepping down for family and personal reasons' sounds like the polite way of saying, "take the deal or I will ruin your career".

Reply
Dan Noonan
11/5/2016 09:05:36 am

Thanks Lucy, Mark P. and Jude law for your comments. I agree Lucy, I suspect the learning environment for these student athletes is filled with "inappropriate language", but they seem to not be complaining.

I am with you on this also Mark P. I had the less than fun opportunity to spend a very short period of time in a makeshift trauma ward over in Vietnam. I think everyone of those physicians would not have passed the Boulanger/Thro standards for proper language, but you know what, none of the people they were treating or working with ever complained.

Thanks for this Jude Law. Mi Amigo did say that Dr. Capilouto appeared to get better at avoiding the questions the farther the deposition went along. Practice, practice, practice.

Reply
Dan Noonan
11/7/2016 09:07:43 am

I thought I would repost this comment by Super etc. etc., that occurred at the end of the last post, simply because it may not have been noticed. This is an email Dr. Karpf sent out that discusses corporate compliance. I really like this quote from Dr. Karpf's message:

"You will never be penalized for reporting suspected misconduct, but failing to do so can result in disciplinary action."

I am not sure how well this fits with Dr. Karpf's threat to Dr. Kearney in the College of Medicine Faculty Council meeting following Dr. Kearney's questioning of KMSF money management, nor for that matter, Dan Ross' firing following his similar questioning of KMSF money management practices.

Here is the Super etc. etc. comment:

Look what just turned up in my email inbox

If only Paul Kearney had known about this "compliance hotline" :-)


Learn from the Corporate Compliance team this coming week
Colleagues:

We have an incredible responsibility to serve the people of the Commonwealth. In doing so, it is essential that we demonstrate the highest integrity in all of our services.

UK HealthCare’s Corporate Compliance ensures this integrity by demonstrating our commitment to remain honest in our business relations with patients, the community, employees, the government and third-party payors. Additionally, the Corporate Compliance team works to centralize and intensify our efforts in preventing and detecting illegal, unethical or abusive conduct.

Each of us has to do our part to maintain integrity and honesty by reporting any conduct that we, in good faith, believe to be illegal, unethical or abusive. You will never be penalized for reporting suspected misconduct, but failing to do so can result in disciplinary action.

We understand that this can sometimes be difficult, so there are several options for filing a report. You may bring the matter to the attention of your supervisor, contact the compliance officer at 859-323-8002, enter a report online, or call the Comply-Line at 877-898-6072.

The Comply-Line is a toll-free phone reporting service operated by an independent contractor and is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, every day of the year. Comply-Line reports, as well as those made directly to the compliance officer, can be made anonymously.

As a leader, I am proud to say that I see integrity and fairness demonstrated by our team members every day. This helps our patients feel confident and comfortable in coming to us for all of their health care needs. It also allows us to feel safe and respected in our work and as human beings.

With this in mind, I encourage you to take advantage of all the special opportunities during National Compliance & Ethics week, Nov. 7-11. Throughout the week, UK HealthCare’s Corporate Compliance team will hold informational talks about compliance and ethics at UK HealthCare. Learn more.

Sincerely,


Michael Karpf, MD
Executive VP for Health Affairs
University of Kentucky / UK HealthCare

Reply
Bertha
11/9/2016 03:54:02 am

I find it interesting that four (D. Bernard Boulanger, Dr. Elizabeth Oates, Dr. Darrell Jennings, Dr. Susan McDowell) of the 12 person MSEC committee that convicted Dr. Kearney of these hideous crimes, declared him a dangerous person and used this declaration to kick him off of campus, are or were also KMSF Board members. Add to this list the KMSF Board Member Dr. Fred DeBeer who was brought in to give testimony, one has to question the total bias of this committee, keeping in mind that it was over questions of KMSF money mismanagement practices that Dr. Karpf threatened Dr. Kearney at the Faculty Council meeting. Looking a little closer, Dr. Susan McDowell is also listed as one of the two-person investigative team that was responsible for generating the accumulated historical data documenting Dr. Kearney’s hideous crimes against humanity, some of which now appear to be totally false data stuffed into Dr. Kearney’s personnel file, not to mention the so called 2 inch file of complaints that Dr. Zwishenberger claims to have given Dr. DeBeer, but Dr. DeBeer claims he knows nothing about. I am now beginning to understand why they are calling this a kangaroo court.

Reply
Dan Noonan
11/9/2016 12:17:37 pm

Thanks Bertha for the comment and sorry about the delay in posting it. This does look pretty much like a setup and much like the preliminary Board of Trustees meeting on this matter that I attended. At least their, although clearly predetermined, Dr. Kearney was able to have a representative present. This MSEC trial looks like what I perceive trials were like in communist Russia and China. Guilty until proven innocent and you are not allowed to be present at the trial nor to have any official representation. Kind of makes you wonder where these guys got their law degrees, and again, what are they afraid of?

Reply
Dan Noonan
11/10/2016 03:31:08 pm

Dear Blog Commenters,

I will be out of touch with this blog for an indeterminant amount of time. Feel free to submit comments and whenever my boss isn't looking and I am able to sneak back to this computer I will post them. In the meantime, keep the fires burning. I know a couple of blog commenters have expressed the sentiment that this is a complete waste of time, but it is our time to waste and therefore let's waste it the way we choose and not the way they want us to. Besides, I kind of feel that if they keep expressing this sentiment, then maybe we are not wasting our time.

Reply
Dan Noonan
11/18/2016 08:55:25 am

Well I can't sit here for long but I just wanted to send out 3 messages. The first is thanks to all for their kind emails. They were much appreciated. It was a lot more complicated than anticipated but we are home and moving in the right direction.

The second is a big "thank you" to Dr. Bill Brooks at Central Baptist Hospital. You are the best and I owe you big time.

Finally, although I can't spend much time on this blog, I hope folks don't decide to simply throw in the towel and give up on this cause. Please keep in mind the cause is much bigger than the Dr. Kearney legal case. This obvious total disregard for the rules and faculty rights by the administration of the university and its lawyers affects everyone employed here. The rules/laws were established for a purpose, and just as there is a consequence for let's say a faculty member breaking those rules, so too should there be a reciprocal consequence for an administrator or university lawyer breaking those rules. In the absence of that, what you have is basically what we see here: a small body of university administrators and lawyers, who when their initial attempt to threaten this faculty member out of the university failed, got together in the absence of the accused to:
a) assemble a body of individuals, many of whom had conflicts of interest with respect to the proceedings,
b) pad the accused personnel file with misleading information,
c) create false information to support their claims
d) bring in testimonials from only individuals that have personal interests in seeing this person maligned, and
e) declare and implement a verdict and punishment that is totally outside the authority of a committee of this kind.

If you do not mind injustices happening around you, as long as they are not happening to you, then I suppose this would be a good time to simply throw in the towel. On the other hand, if you feel that university administrators and lawyers should be held responsible for breaking rules, then maybe do something about it. Perhaps the University Senate would be a good place to start with this question of "what are the consequences of an administrator or lawyer breaking university regulations?" Maybe the university newspaper might be interested in this question also. In other words, keep the fires burning.

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DB
11/19/2016 04:54:24 am

Well timed comment. I see on the FaceBook page where we appear to have a definite incident of either an administrator (Dr. Zwischenberger, a department Chair) lying multiple times under oath at a deposition when he stated he knew nothing about the infamous Faculty Compensation Committee and its composition, going so far as to state he was not a member of it, or an administrator (Dr. Moliterno, a department Chair) documented as lying to an entire Faculty Council when he stated that the infamous Faculty Compensation Committee was composed of "the eighteen clinical department chairs as well as a certain number of other members". I know as a lowly faculty member I am acutely aware of all of the committees I am assigned (especially one that supposedly determines salaries and bonuses) and would consider myself totally incompetent if I were not.

Returning to the point, it clearly appears that we have here an administrator once again breaking the rules for convenience. What is the punishment? If it were Dr. Kearney we already know it would be banishment from the university property, loss of patient privileges, loss of teaching privileges, etc. etc.

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R. Monica
11/19/2016 07:55:00 am

I think perjury in these depositions is a felony

http://www.lrc.ky.gov/Statutes/statute.aspx?id=19893

Of course intent is very hard to prove so these cases are very rarely prosecuted except in egregious circumstances. But this might be one of those circumstances where the perjury is so outrageous something could be done.

Zwischenberger needs to go. The move towards academic service lines will eventually make clinical department chairs impotent and pointless. The sooner this happens the better.

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R. Monica
11/20/2016 12:24:48 pm

The best way to get rid of Zwischenberger would be for all of the surgery faculty to get on board with the service line plan because it has been made very clear that he will not have any control over these. So if all of the CV and CT surgeons are fed up with Saha and Zwishenberger getting paid more than they do for doing nothing they should get on board with the CV service line. And the Trauma surgeons should get on board with the emergency medicine/critical care service line. Neuro and Orthopedic surgery are already not part of the surgery department so pretty soon there won't be anything left for him to be in charge of.

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Prez Trumpiluto
11/20/2016 05:30:20 pm

Really great editorial which of course is relevant to Kearney's request to have more transparency with the KMSF records.

http://www.kentucky.com/opinion/editorials/article115788078.html

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Stujoy
11/20/2016 08:48:31 pm

It appears that UK is under yet another hiring freeze. Of course, no clinical directors were notified of this. We cannot even replace those who leave...leaving departments even further short-staffed.

And why is this? To pay for the bloated salaries of administrators who do nothing?

Reply
Will
11/21/2016 05:41:47 am

I agree Stujoy. This is ridiculous. Think about it, on Zwische’s bloated salary alone (not counting bonuses) we could hire 10-15 nurses and 15-25 office workers. What a waste. Here is one non-producer, and at present with all of these lawsuits and people leaving, “counterproductive employee”, being replaced by up to 25 people that contribute to the revenue generating potential of the hospital.



I find it interesting that when businesses start up they are lean machines with everybody by necessity part of the productivity. Once they begin to become successful they go out and hire overpaid employees (administrators or VP of this and that) whose first act of employment is generally to hire someone to do their job and someone to be blamed for anything that might go wrong. Eventually productivity begins to decline so these people then justify their existence by bringing in a company like Price-Waterhouse-Cooper to tell them how to do their jobs. PWC views the administrators (their employers) as untouchable and everybody else as some form of mechanical entity that the company has too many of. Their solution is simply to get rid of some of these and double, triple, quadruple the workload on the other machines. If the machine wears out just replace it with another, or better yet, add its workload onto another machine. The only problem they seem to not take into consideration, is that as opposed to machines, human beings generally become better with experience. Oh well, as an administrator it really does not matter because you can now blame any decline in productivity on PWC. Administrators, what a waste of money.

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R Monica
11/21/2016 02:31:00 pm

Its just amazing to me that Zwishenberger was hired in the first place and has been tolerated for so long. I can't imagine what possible justification there is for paying him so much to do so little. His behavior in the Kearney depositions is just mind boggling- either he is mentally defective or a bold faced liar. Or both.

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Dan Noonan
11/21/2016 03:08:52 pm

Thanks to everyone for keeping the blog going in my absence. As with Doogie MacArthur's escape from the Philippines, hopefully "I will return" soon.

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R. Monica
11/22/2016 09:24:33 am

Heartwarming thanksgiving message from Karpf and his Kronies.

Colleagues:

During this month of Thanksgiving, we have been reflecting on the things for which we are grateful. Our dedicated and talented employees are first among them.

Thank you for the work you do as we continue to progress toward our goal of establishing UK HealthCare as the leading referral academic medical center for Kentucky and beyond.

And as always during the holidays, we thank those who will be working on Thanksgiving Day to ensure our patients continue to receive excellent care and that our employees are cared for well.

Whether you are spending the day at home or here, we wish you a Thanksgiving season filled with the warmth of family and friends, abundance and bright moments.

Sincerely,
Michael Karpf, MD
Executive Vice President for Health Affairs
University of Kentucky / UK HealthCare®

Mark D. Birdwhistell
Vice President, Administration & External Affairs

Bo Cofield, DrPH
Vice President & Chief Clinical Operations Officer

Craig Collins
Vice President & Chief Financial Officer

Robert DiPaola, MD
Vice President & Dean, UK College of Medicine

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Stujoy
11/22/2016 02:21:30 pm

I would prefer assurances that clinical departments affected by the hiring freeze will be allowed to hire replacements for those who leave instead of a meaningless pat on the back.

Talk is cheap. Actions speak louder.

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Capn Cappy
11/22/2016 12:49:54 pm

I tell you who won't be working in the hospital on thanksgiving- Karpf and Zwishchenberger.

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