"Once again, for those new to this blog site, at present there are 50 posts on the blog and each has its own set of comments. To read the comments you have to hit the word "Comments" at the beginning or end of the post. Somewhat confusing is that when you bring up the comments for a specific post it eliminates the other posts from the screen. To bring the other posts back up simply go back to the top of the page and click on Blog. Feel free to comment should you wish. No email address is required to make a comment so anonymity is strong. Due to some previous abuse of this right to anonymously comment, I have had to include an approval option, but I try to approve constructive comments within 24 hours. One last point of note, to read the earliest posts you have to click on the word "​<<Previous" at the very bottom of the posts available. Finally, for those just looking for a good summary of the Dr. Kearney case, simply scroll down to the previous 12/10/2016 post. For social media developments on the Dr. Kearney situation I would encourage you to visit the excellent "Save Dr. Kearney Facebook Page": 
https://www.facebook.com/Save-Dr-Kearney-1039697039481791/

While we wait I just thought I would update this blog post with respect to where we are  with regards to the University’s attempts to get the Dr. Kearney lawsuit dismissed, and then maybe just revisit some other stuff simply to keep the fires burning.
 
There appears to be a misconception by some out there with respect to this recusal of Judge Reynolds in the Dr. Kearney case. In the comment section of the previous post Glum appeared to infer that the recusal of Judge Reynolds in the University’s "3rd attempt" to get the case dismissed is some legal ploy by Dr. Kearney’s attorney to prolong this whole thing. In actuality, Judge Reynolds heard the entire University motion for dismissal of the case on Tuesday, March 20. Rather than rule on the motion at the end of oral arguments, “Judge Reynolds” announced that he had a conflict of interest because his wife worked at the Gill Heart Institute. In other words “he recused himself”. The plaintiff’s motion for his removal from the bench on this case is “mandated by Kentucky Statute”. 
 
The case now has a new judge. The honorable Ernesto Scorsone has been assigned to the bench. Further court proceedings will be delayed until Judge Scorsone has familiarized himself with the case. It is perhaps no surprise that Judge Scorsone received both his bachelor’s degree and his law degree from the University of Kentucky (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernesto_Scorsone), but I suspect it is almost impossible to find a circuit court judge in Fayette County who isn’t in some way associated with the University. Having said that, Judge Scorsone’s resume does present him as a liberal thinker and a defender of civil rights, so I like his history with respect to what we are dealing with here.
 
With regard to the other stuff, I believe I included this in my earlier summary of the Dr. Kearney case, but thought this letter from Dr. Kearney’s attorney, Mr. Pafunda, to the Hospital attorney, Mr. Cliff Iler, might be worth revisiting.  This letter, submitted by Dr. Kearney’s attorney Mr. Pafunda and delivered to the Hospital attorney Mr. Iler on November 3, 2014, was written in response to the University’s threat to ‘take the deal or we will destroy you’re your career’.  This threat was made to Dr. Kearney by the University’s General Council, Mr. Thro, in the presence of both Mr. Iler and Mr. Pafunda. The letter nicely states the concerns that Dr. Kearney’s attorney had with respect to not only the treatment Dr. Kearney was receiving, but perhaps more importantly, the timing of this treatment and its relationship to the retaliation issues.
  
November 3, 2014
Mr. Clifton Iler Hospital Counsel
 
Re:   Paul A. Kearney, MD, D.Sci, MS, FACS
         Professor of Surgery
         University of Kentucky College of Medicine
 
I write to advise that Dr. Kearney rejects your recent offer. I also write to advise that the offer merits no “in kind” reply. Rather, it is obvious that the most recent complaints regarding Dr. Kearney, upon which this “action” is grounded, not only lack basis in fact but constitute a contrived effort to maliciously document Dr. Kearney’s personnel file with allegations of wrongful conduct, unsupported by the University’s own investigation(s) for the sole purpose of removing Dr. Kearney (a senior member of the Faculty Council and Chairman of the Department of Surgery Practice Plan Committee) from his position in “retaliation” for his public disclosure of Dr. Karpf’s impropriety i.e. attempting to gain control of KMSF practice plan funding contrary to University regulations. 
 
Also disturbing is the timing of the September 4th and 5th complaints, solicited and fabricated by the University, to cover its retaliation against Dr. Kearney, for publically disclosing Dr. Karpf’s purposeful disregard for University regulations in an effort to secure control of the KMSF funds.
 
The following is undisputed:
 
1.       During a faculty council meeting Dr. Karpf threatened to terminate Dr. Kearney after he disclosed to the counsel Dr. Karpf’s lawless effort to misappropriate KMSF funds in direct violation of University regulations. The “threat” was made in the presence of the faculty council members and Bill Thro, University General Counsel.
 
2.       Shortly thereafter a student is alleged to complain that Dr. Kearney included a discriminatory remark during a lecture. A review of the circumstance revealed that no other student complained. Rather, those in attendance rewarded Dr. Kearney’s lecture with a vigorous ovation at its conclusion. Review of the lecture recording confirmed that the “complaint” was unfounded. This current “action” is in part grounded on that “meritless” claim.
 
3.       On September 5, 2014 a patient, James Wilson, complained about Dr. Kearney.  The complaint did not involve patient care or treatment but rather Dr. Kearney’s abrasive remarks made in course of inserting a feeding tube in a severely injured hepatitis B and C positive young man when the patient attempted to bite a resident physician who was assisting Dr. Kearney. The patient was safely and successfully treated. This current action is in part grounded on that “meritless” claim.
 
4.       Dr. Kearney by agreement was placed on administrative leave to permit an investigation of the James Wilson event to proceed. Dr. Kearney agreed to the temporary administrative leave to insure independence of the investigation and to protect the University from potential criticism from the patient that the findings might be influenced by Dr. Kearney’s presence in the department. The investigation is concluded. No disciplinary action or charge has followed.
 
5.       A “few” days later Dr. Karpf contacted Greg Goodman and tells Mr. Goodman that Dr. Kearney struck a nurse. Dr. Kearney’s personnel file confirms that there was an allegation lodged at one time. However, that the University’s investigation determined the allegation was unfounded and that no disciplinary action followed. The more disturbing aspect of this event is Dr. Karpf’s conduct in sharing the contents of Dr. Kearney’s confidential personnel file with someone outside the University - “particularly” because the shared information was unsubstantiated.
 
6.       The University’s recent effort to manufacture a “fictitious” paper trail comprised of solicited claims and allegations of improper behavior lacking factual validity is nothing more than a “veiled” effort by the University to cover its retaliation against Dr. Kearney because of his disclosure of Dr. Karpf’s attempt to assume control of KMSF funds in violation of University regulations.  
 
In reply we demand that Dr. Kearney be immediately returned to work without change of job status, title or compensation, that his personnel file be purged of any record of false and misleading contents, and that the University be restrained from further action designed to damage, alter or impact Dr. Kearney’s employment relationship with the University and/or his reputation.
 
I post this letter because I think it presents some of the foundation material for Dr. Kearney’s retaliation claim as well as a valid basis for allowing these court proceedings to continue. Beyond what was covered in the letter we have also seen the many attempts by the University to either hinder the investigations into these matters (e.g. open records lawsuits, missing recordings of the MSEC trial, confiscation of Dr. Kearney’s personal items, monitoring of Dr. Kearney’s emails, banning Dr. Kearney from the University campus, etc.) as well as the clear denial of due process in administering this injustice (e.g. denial of representation in the MSEC trails, the use of KMSF employees in the conduction of the MSEC trials, the use of unsigned and possibly fabricated data in the development of this case against Dr. Kearney, etc.). Cumulatively these support the contention that the hospital and the University administration are willing to spend an exorbitant amount of time and money to discredit this highly respected trauma surgeon. Finally, keep in mind the justification for all of these expensive and extreme disciplinary actions taken by the University and hospital administrators is a claim of a behavior problem that they have not only "endorsed" but also "rewarded" for over 25 years. If this doesn’t give you pause to question the real motivations behind this vendetta, than I can only guess you either hate Dr. Kearney or you work for the administration.

"Once again, for those new to this blog site, at present there are 49 posts on the blog and each has its own set of comments. To read the comments you have to hit the word "Comments" at the beginning or end of the post. Somewhat confusing is that when you bring up the comments for a specific post it eliminates the other posts from the screen. To bring the other posts back up simply go back to the top of the page and click on Blog. Feel free to comment should you wish. No email address is required to make a comment so anonymity is strong. Due to some previous abuse of this right to anonymously comment, I have had to include an approval option, but I try to approve constructive comments within 24 hours. One last point of note, to read the earliest posts you have to click on the word "​<<Previous" at the very bottom of the posts available. Finally, for those just looking for a good summary of the Dr. Kearney case, simply scroll down to the previous 12/10/2016 post. For social media developments on the Dr. Kearney situation I would encourage you to visit the excellent "Save Dr. Kearney Facebook Page": 
https://www.facebook.com/Save-Dr-Kearney-1039697039481791/

So here we go again.  As noted in the previous blog post, on March 20, 2018, the three lawyers hired by the University and the lawyer for Dr. Kearney will go before a judge to determine whether or not this new judge will finally side with the most powerful University and dismiss the Whistleblower lawsuit Dr. Kearney has filed against the University. The University lawyers have filed their “Motion for Summary Judgment” (see here) and Dr. Kearney’s lawyer has filed his “Response to Motion for Summary Judgment” (see here).  As I understand it, after reading and cogitating over these documents, the judge then decides whether or not to allow this matter to proceed to the next level, that being a jury trial. I have no knowledge as to whether or not the judge hears verbal arguments from both sides or whether he just acts upon the evidence presented in these documents. As noted previously, both documents are fairly long (26 pages for the Motion and 24 pages for the Response) with hundreds of pages of “Exhibits”. In an effort to give folks an opportunity to understand what is being dealt with here I will attempt to summarize.
 
UK’s Motion vs. Dr. Kearney’s Response:
 
-  The first five pages of the Motion are background wherein the UK-hired lawyers present evidence for Dr. Kearney’s “history of bad behavior” and the justifications for the disciplinary actions taken against Dr. Kearney. This is clearly their attempt to discredit Dr. Kearney as a physician and teacher, which they then wish to use to discredit any retaliation aspect to Dr. Kearney’s Whistleblowing lawsuit. It basically paints Dr. Kearney as almost an evil and dangerous person, and the evidence and pretense for almost all of this is predicated upon what boils down to be "a history of unprofessional vocabulary."  This is somewhat easy for Dr. Kearney’s attorney to respond to because they fail to once again mention the "25 years of outstanding performance evaluations, promotions and awards" that Dr. Kearney has received and that the administration has signed off on throughout this time period of this so called bad behavior.

-  The UK-hired lawyers then move into attempts to justify the MSEC trial and the actions they took in their attempt to silence and destroy Dr. Kearney’s medical career.  In this they surprisingly include Dr. Zwischenberger’s December 2012 reprimand letter (see page 9 of this document) that, as we have seen, is unsigned by Dr. Kearney so we can’t even be sure he even received it. This report then goes on to discuss the MSEC investigation and the formation of the two member ad hoc investigative committee that was assigned to investigate the complaints used as a premise by the CMO (Dr. Boulanger) to suspend Dr. Kearney’s clinical privileges.  I know that Dr. Kearney’s lawyer did not note this, but item 9.2.1 of the UK Healthcare Medical Staff Bylaws (see here) states: “The ad hoc committee shall be comprised of three members of the Medical Staff, which will include the Vice President at the primary practice site of the affected Practitioner and at least one other who is a member of the Active Medical Staff at the primary practice site of the affected Practitioner.” I feel certain this is to assure, as the UK lawyers put it, “the suspension is not motivated by a personal or professional vendetta.” With that in mind, one might reasonably ask, did these people have trouble counting to three or were they unable to find a putative third party to fit their desired end? Of course, as we have noted previously, Dr. Kearney’s Whistleblowing lawsuit targets KMSF money management and both of the ad hoc investigators assigned in this instance are paid through KMSF. A final point of issue here is the observation that this team of “two” very busy physicians were given just “one week” to investigate claims that were the premise for revoking Dr. Kearney’s clinical privileges, barring Dr. Kearney from entering campus, barring Dr. Kearney from conversations with anyone on campus and basically barring Dr. Kearney from creating a defense.

-  Then in an attempt to make these charges more pervasive the UK-hired lawyers cite the single anonymous student complaint. Unfortunately they fail to note that it is the only one on Dr. Kearney’s 25 year record of teaching and needs to be balanced against 29 teaching awards. Furthermore, I believe that a recording of this lecture (they probably forgot that these lectures are actually recorded) in which the anonymous student complaint was lodged suspiciously identified nothing offensive in this presentation. In fact, I believe he received an ovation at the end of it.
 
-  Finally we have what the UK-hired lawyers would like you to believe was the “last straw”, that being the quadriplegic patient complaint that claimed Dr. Kearney called him a f**king quad. A few things that they don’t mention about this complaint (that by the way originated as a Facebook post by the patient’s mother) was: a) that the patient was under the influence of mind altering drugs during this procedure, b) The “two” assigned MSEC investigators looking into this incident interviewed those present in the endoscopy suite where this was alleged to have occurred and everyone denied hearing Dr. Kearney call this patient a f**king quad, c) Dr. Kearney denied calling the patient a f**king quad, d) the patient tried to sue for damages and the court “dismissed the case with prejudice”, and e) the university submitted this case and their other historical evidence to the Board of Licensure in an attempt to get Dr. Kearney’s medical license revoked and this came back with: “there is insufficient evidence to warrant a complaint”. In all of their interviews the worst these two investigators could come up with was Dr. Kearney admitting saying to the patient, “Hey dumb-ass we are trying to help you, just relax”. So what it appears we have here is the University hiring outside lawyers to defend a mother’s Facebook claim that her drug-impaired son believed that the doctor attempting to save his life insulted him.  I suspect we would have very few physicians left in the hospital if this were the standard premise for revoking patient privileges.
 
I think more to the point here, the evidence that these UK-hired lawyers have presented here in their efforts to denigrate Dr. Kearney's character and to detract from the possibility that these extreme measures to silence Dr. Kearney had something to do with Dr. Kearney’s Whistleblowing lawsuit, had just the opposite effect. The contradictions of the many accomplishments and accolades this hospital administration has awarded Dr. Kearney over this same time period they now wish to claim this aberrant behavior, along with the many inconsistencies in the allegations being made and the severity of the punishment inflicted upon Dr. Kearney, "just doesn’t fit". With that in mind one must then begin to ask “what really is behind this sudden attempt to silence Dr. Kearney and drive him out of the hospital/physician environment and preferably out of the University?"
 
The next section of the UK-hired lawyers Motion for Summary Judgment document attempts to discredit Dr. Kearney’s Whistleblowing case.  The crux of their argument is pretty much the same one they made in their last 2 attempts to get this case dismissed. I suspect, because this is a new judge, they had to provide some form of excuse why their motion to dismiss was itself dismissed twice before, so they used the old benevolent “court granting Dr. Kearney time to conduct limited discovery on limited topics”. Of course they had no good explanation for why the court dismissed this motion the second time.  Strange, they also did not mention anything about the many times they tried to drag this whole process out by blocking attempts to depose individuals central to the case Dr. Kearney’s lawyer was trying to make.
 
It is clear that these University-hired lawyers recognize that the strength of Dr. Kearney’s Whistleblowing case rests in: a) the January 2014 Faculty Council meeting that brought up the topic of the infamous KMSF Practice Plan Committee that didn’t meet for over 4 years yet was thought to be actively involved in a variety of money management decisions UKHC administrators had been making over this time period, and b) the April 2014 Faculty Council meeting that Dr. Karpf and General Counsel Bill Thro called to discuss this “legal matter” related to the Practice Plan Committee concerns aired by Dr. Kearney and others in the January Faculty Council meeting. The contentions of the University-hired lawyers are that: a) Complaining about publicly known or available information is not a “disclosure” for purposes of whistleblowing, b) Complaining about the Practice Plan Committee’s communication or lack thereof is not a report about the violation of any law or rule, c) Dr. Kearney did not complain to an appropriate official, and d) Dr. Kearney cannot prove his alleged whistleblowing was a contributing factor to the disciplinary action taken against him. In responding to these Dr. Kearney’s lawyer argues that a) the law/rule violated and cited by D. Kearney in the April Faculty Council meeting was AR 3:14, b) in essence Dr. Kearney complained to both the EVPHA and General Counsel for the University, c) Dr. Kearney was verbally disciplined at the Faculty Council meeting for suggesting an audit of KMSF to clear up any confusion with respect to money management issues, and d) KMSF money management is not published public information and even Open Records requests to obtain it as we have seen are being denied.

I think, or perhaps I should say I hope, when the judge takes everything into consideration, including the issues at hand, the timing and severity of the disciplinary actions taken by the hospital administration against Dr. Kearney, and the coincidental disappearance of many of the major UKHC and KMSF employees involved in these proceedings, a case can be made for advancing this to the next level, that being a jury trial. 

Once again, for those new to this blog site, at present there are 46 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. One last point of note, to read the earliest posts you have to click on the word "<<Previous" at the very bottom of the posts available. Finally, for those just looking for a good summary of the Dr. Kearney case, simply scroll down to the previous 12/10/2016 post. For social media developments on the Dr. Kearney situation I would encourage you to visit the excellent "Save Dr. Kearney Facebook Page": 
https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=save%20dr%20kearney

Happy Holidays to all.

Once again, for those new to this blog site, at present there are 43 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. 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. Finally, for those just looking for a good summary of the Dr. Kearney case, simply scroll down seven posts to the 12/10/2016 post. For social media developments on the Dr. Kearney situation I would encourage you to also visit the excellent "Save Dr. Kearney Facebook Page": 
https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=save%20dr%20kearney

Okay, okay, maybe it is time for another post to the blog. It has been a long summer and I unfortunately/fortunately have been preoccupied. Lots happening recently that might have some bearing on the Dr. Kearney case.  Much if not all of this can be found in other places like the Dr. Kearney Facebook page cited above, but I include it here for the new and frequent visitors to this blog site who may not visit these other sites.
 
To begin with, just yesterday UKHC administrators, as well as president Capilouto and his posse of lawyers, received the embarrassing news  [in the form of a Kentucky Herald Leader article (http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article166487142.html)] that the faculty in the College of Medicine, in defiance of this university and hospital administration and in support of Dr. Kearney, voted to have Dr. Kearney represent them on the College of Medicine Faculty Council. This, along with the 100s of letters to President Capilouto airing public support for Dr. Kearney, as well as his election by the general faculty to the University Senate and the recent establishment of a teaching award in Dr. Kearney’s name by the College of Medicine resident students, all voice the majority sentiment with regards to this total mistreatment of a university tenured professor and outstanding trauma physician. Of course what is perhaps most interesting about this is the distinct possibility that the College of Medicine Faculty Council is where it all began. Back in the 4/15/2014 College of Medicine Faculty Council meeting, Dr. Kearney suggested an audit of KMSF might help answer some of the questions the Faculty Council had with respect to the mystery Practice Plan Committee and hospital finances. This of course resulted in the response from Dr. Karpf  (something about him leaving if he didn’t like how things were run around here) that many interpreted as a threat. Shortly following this meeting Dr. Kearney was cited for use of improper language in a trauma ward.  This citation was subsequently used as an excuse to assemble a committee of KMSF employees to litigate the incident (of course in the absence of Dr. Kearney). This jury of totally biased KMSF employees (several of which were on the KMSF board of directors), as might be expected, found him guilty. They then went on to implement an unprecedented sentence of loss of patient privileges and banishment from the university. Unfortunately for Dr. Capilouto and his cadre of arrogant lawyers (but fortunately for faculty throughout the university), Dr. Kearney chose not to “take the deal or we will destroy your career”. Thank you Dr. Kearney.  Offering support to the belief that all of this was simply a witch hunt, is the observation that the Chief Medical Officer Dr. Boulanger, the College of Medicine Dean Dr. deBeer, and the Executive Vice President for Health Affairs Dr. Karpf, all of whom participated in the manufacturing of this vendetta against Dr. Kearney (along with the university president Dr. Capilouto and his General Counsel professor/adjunct instructor Thro), have managed to flee the scene of the crime. Furthermore, this would also seem to support the contention that this is a case of personal vendetta and harassment by these individuals rather than a legitimate violation of university or university hospital regulations that merit the punishment implemented.
 
Let’s see, what else is there? Oh yes, there’s the UK dentist, Dr. Raynor Mullins, who, like Dr. Kearney, recently filed a Whistleblower lawsuit against a senior administrator (Mark Birdwhistell) in UK Healthcare (http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/article164966162.html). Mr. Birdwhistell is UK’s vice president (or is that president of vice, I get these mixed up) of administration for UK Healthcare. This case appears to reflect, once again, that arrogant practice of the lawyers at the University of Kentucky who think they are all powerful and can strong-arm anyone.  That might work well for sexual harassers under employment by the university, but probably not so well for retirees who they can no longer bribe with NDAs or harass with termination.
 
Speaking of the UK traditional strong-arm approach to handling vocal faculty, there is also the recent newspaper article detailing the Sergio Melgar lawsuit (http://www.kentucky.com/news/local/education/article165159277.html). Sergio Melgar was a former Chief Financial Officer at UK hospital who recently filed a discrimination lawsuit against UK Medical Center. Mr. Melgar apparently made the mistake of voicing a complaint about his salary and was fired by Mike Karpf for it.  It seems they didn’t have to recruit a kangaroo court for this one, Dr. Karpf simply said, ‘you’re fired’.  Donald Trump would be proud of him.
 
Finally, there is the recent court-mandated release of information surrounding the Hazard money mismanagement debacle. If you remember, the university filed a lawsuit against the Herald Leader to stop them from accessing the infamous Hazard Board of Trustees presentation by the Washington lawyer, David Douglas, who they paid a million dollars to fix (at the cost of another 4 million dollars) the UK/Hazard mismanagement of Medicare/Medicaid billing (see presentation provided by an anonymous contributor). With something obvious to hide, the university of course is contesting much of this (see attached university motion to alter, amend or vacate the judge’s opinion and order).
 
So there you have it. The University of Kentucky appears to be spending more time and money (taxpayer dollars by the way) in court this year than they are educating the youth of this state. Speaking of which, what a poor example for the youth of the state. I have to wonder how much of this could have been avoided if the university had administrators and lawyers with the least bit of humility or the least bit of negotiating skills. 

Once again, for those new to this blog site, at present there are 42 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. 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. Finally, for those just looking for a good summary of the Dr. Kearney case, simply scroll down four posts to the 12/10/2016 post. For social media developments on the Dr. Kearney situation I would encourage you to also visit the excellent "Save Dr. Kearney Facebook Page": 
https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=save%20dr%20kearney

Comments at the end of the last post centered on the 3 finalists in the EVPHA search, and the Herald Leader article authored by John Cheves entitled: “Judge says UK violated open records law, orders documents released” (http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article158843224.html?#1). In a way, both of these are directly related to the Dr. Kearney case. Although the university administration might wish to claim otherwise, it was the Dr. Kearney case and the administrative efforts to shut him up that in part initiated these open records investigative approaches into the financial management practices of UKHC and its leaders. Furthermore, and again although the university administration may wish to claim otherwise, it was the Dr. Kearney case that in part has led to the remodeling of the upper administration in the hospital and College of Medicine.

So that being the case, I thought this Herald Leader article merited a post. Some of the highlights of this article include a Fayette Circuit Judge deciding:
 
1.  "The University of Kentucky violated the state’s Open Records Act by improperly withholding documents about a failed business deal between UK HealthCare and a Hazard cardiology firm from the Herald-Leader"
 
I think everyone remembers this attempted cover-up of mismanagement wherein we paid 1 million dollars to a DC lawyer to fix it, and it only cost the university another 4 million dollars to make the fix work.
 
2.  "UK also violated the Open Meetings Act with an unannounced Power Point presentation about problems with the business deal to the UK Board of Trustees during what was supposed to be an informal dinner in May 2016. UK failed to keep minutes of that meeting and refused to provide a copy of the Power Point presentation afterward once the Herald-Leader requested it."
 
We discussed this one also and I believe the brilliant university attorneys, rather than simply being transparent about this open meeting, chose to flex their endless taxpayer subsidized university resources and muscle, and sue the Herald Leader for requesting this Open Meetings information.
 
3.  “The court agrees that there appears to be some sort of intent on the part of the university to mislead the public about the nature of the May 2, 2016, ‘dinner’ meeting, implying that it was merely a social event”
 
This basically speaks for itself. Even the judge appears to be asking the question: “What are they trying to hide?” Sound familiar?
 
4.  “When a public institution like UK spends public money, it must provide to the public detailed information about its use of that money.”
 
This too sounds like many of the comments made throughout the blog. The problem with the UK administration and its lawyers is, that they often come across like they feel the laws do not apply to them.
 
The judge went on to strike down UK’s contention that during this dinner and “open meeting” the meeting went into some form of “closed session” to discuss this presentation. To quote the judge:
 
“Either the dinner was a regular called open meeting, such that the board could have no legitimate expectation of confidentiality, or it was not.”

“If it was not, then the board was required to cite the provision of (the open meetings law) that would allow it to enter into closed session and adhere to the requirements for conducting a closed session. While the university dismisses those requirements as a ‘technicality,’ technical compliance with the Open Meetings Act is exactly what the law demands.” 

Not too surprising, UK continues to try to hide behind the attorney-client privilege with UK spokesperson Jay Blanton stating:

“We are carefully reviewing — and considering appeal on — how other aspects of the court’s decision would impact the extent of protections offered by attorney-client privilege,”
 
But again, the judge shot this down with the statement:

The clinic audit, for example, is neither “communications within the meaning of attorney-client privilege” nor “confidential communications” made for the purposes of taking legal action, both of which are allowable exemptions under the open records law.”
 
Personally I think it is a big waste of university time and money to fight this battle. Transparency should be a central component of a university, especially a state university.  Transparency often keeps people honest, whether they want to be or not. Knowing that others might be able to monitor what you are doing with the finances you have access to, can often force someone down a path of legitimacy, whether they want to go or not.  I harken back to Dr. Karpfs statement at the budget meeting wherein, with hands interlaced over his head he told us that: “You have to think of these as all one big pot of money”. Of course the “these” he was referring to were UKHC revenue, research revenue, state revenue and teaching revenue. I am not sure he would have viewed it that way if he knew that the intimate details of how he was planning to spend that “pot of money” would be open to the public.

​Once again, for those new to this blog site, at present there are 41 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. 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. Finally, for those just looking for a good summary of the Dr. Kearney case, simply scroll down three posts to the 12/10/2016 post. For social media developments on the Dr. Kearney situation I would encourage you to also visit the excellent "Save Dr. Kearney Facebook Page": 
https://www.facebook.com/search/top/?q=save%20dr%20kearney


The comment section of the previous blog post ended with discussions of the poor performance of UK hospital in the 2016 Press Ganey Physician Engagement Survey (see the blog posts on 6/6/2016: Press-Ganey Employee and Physician Engagement Survey, and on 6/29/2016: “Spinning the Press-Ganey Survey”). You will remember, in this survey of the over 1,200 hospitals and 63,000 physicians, UK ranked in the bottom 1% for administration engagement with physicians and faculty (See Survey).  Following these horrible results and the leaking of the results to the UKHC community, EVPHA Dr. Karpf, on June 8, 2016, sent a broadcast email to the UK physicians claiming, "We've Heard You" and "we need to understand the issues." 
 
Well a year has passed, and you guessed it, the 2017 survey results have surfaced. Unfortunately, I do not have the complete survey results, but Dr. Davy Jones has forwarded an email on this subject matter that he has sent to the College of Medicine Faculty Council, as well as a variety of other university administrators. This email discusses some of these results, and Dr. Jones has been kind enough to okay the posting of the email on the blog.
 
Dr. Jones' Email

From: Jones, Davy
Sent: Thursday, June 15, 2017 11:56 PM
To: Jicha, Gregory A; Erickson, Deborah R; Kiessling, Stefan; Peterson, Martha L; Kilgore, Michael W; Bailey, Paula D; Martin, Julia E; Kelly, Thomas; Sloan, Paul; Iocono, Joseph; Sullivan, Patrick G
Cc: DiPaola, Robert S; Rowland, Michael L; Huddleston, Alyssa A; Tracy, Tim; Karpf, Michael; Capilouto, Eli
Subject: RE: FC agenda 6-20-17 re: Implications of Press Ganey Survey Results
 
Greg, 
 
May I please recommend that an item expressly shown on the College Faculty Council agenda be something to the effect ‘Press-Ganey Survey Results.’  Dean DiPaola has (refreshingly) candidly presented at an open forum last week, and to the Board of Trustees HealthCare retreat today, the (again) dismal results for the faculty ‘satisfaction’ survey part (bottom 6% nationally) and for the survey part on the faculty’s view of lack of administrative engagement with faculty (for the second year in a row, bottom 1% nationally, both down from the previous bottom 2% national ranking).  However, as far as the COM faculty-at-large can tell (most of whom could not attend the forum last week or the retreat today out at Keeneland), there continues to be a hopeless disconnect of the in-a-bubble mid/higher administration to the in-the-trenches faculty. To wit, 
 
(1) the announcement (senior signed by Dr. Cofield) for the forum last week had the disingenuity to characterize the miserable bottom 6%/1% results as “we saw a slight improvement in both the employee engagement survey and the physician engagement survey”                   
 
and 
 
(2) the email we just received from EVPHA Karpf, whose spin control could only say “Key insights on employee and physician engagement survey results were shared by Cofield and Dean Bob DiPaola, MD, which have already been shared within UK HealthCare and the College of Medicine.”   
 
Given that our College Faculty Council minutes circulate to all basic science and clinical faculty, I would like for our minutes to show (untarnished by (1) and (2) above) what Dean DiPaola has candidly described publicly about these survey results and what his plans are to move the college beyond the ‘bottom 1%’ administrative ambiance he inherited.
 
Tx.
 
Davy
 
Cc: Board of Trustees
 
 
Davy Jones, Professor
Dept. of Toxicology and Cancer Biology
University of Kentucky
Lexington, KY 40506
________________________________________________________________________________

Well as this email suggests, it would seem that perhaps Dr. Karpf and the senior administration did not “hear you”, nor did they apparently “understand the issues”. It’s either this, or they really do not give a hoot, view it all as “fake news” and simply make these overture statements to sound good.
 
In the comment conversations with Mole on the previous blog post, he/she asks the important question: “We all know the faculty engagement is horrible but aside from sacking everyone in a management position what can be done to improve it?” I attempted to respond to this question by first looking at factors that might have contributed to this low morale scenario. Some I came up with included:
 
Potential Morale Impactors:
1.  The Dr. Paul Kearney vendetta that has been festering for the past 3 years:  This extremely abusive treatment of a tenured faculty member, talented trauma surgeon and respected teacher reflects an administration that does not believe in due process or faculty rights. Furthermore, it suggests an administration that not only doesn’t listen, but also one that doesn’t want to hear and one that punishes those who speak out.
 
2.  Restructuring of Performance Evaluations:  These dictates that minimized teaching and service credit while emphasizing the importance of RVUs, clearly frustrated many.
 
3.  Staff Restructuring: The $500,000 Price-Waterhouse-Cooper restructuring/reduction of the staffing in the hospital, with its creation of the I.B.Useless clearly had its impact on staff morale.
 
4.  KMSF Secrecy: The denial of open records requests, the many lawsuits against open records requesters and the refusal of a detailed public audit of KMSF suggests potential mismanagement of UKHC revenue.
 
5.  Faculty Exodus: The large number of talented physician faculty that have left over the past 5 years not only stresses the workload of those that have to cover their loss, but also involves the time consuming and expensive job of replacing these people.
 
6.  Administrative Overload: There are 20 or more individuals in the College of Medicine with the word Dean in their title. With this many people barking out orders and creating new burdens, it again becomes difficult to do what one needs to do.
 
These are just a few of the ones that I can think of. Not being a physician trying to balance a patient workload while at the same time teaching interns, residents and fellows, I feel certain there are others that folks out there might wish to add. Please feel free to do so in the comment section.

The next obvious question is "what possible solutions might these contributing factors point to?"
 
Possible Solutions?
1.  Changing of the Guard: As mentioned in the comment section, the replacement of the College of Medicine Chair and the EVPHA might be a good start. As the saying goes, respect is earned. Unfortunately, very few hospital workers and faculty respected the former CoM Chair and EVPHA. I believe this was simply because these two were both very poor listeners. Furthermore, if you view the buildings as much more important than the people occupying them, you can’t expect the people in them to respect you. Some view respect as something that comes with the position, but it is not. Furthermore respect is a central component of morale and therefore “engagement”.  From what I read in Dr. Jone’s email, it at least appears that the new Dean is a bit more open and perhaps responsive to this survey than our previous Dean. Hopefully the new EVPHA might likewise view these survey results with concern rather than complacency.
 
2.  Resolving the Dr. Kearney Case: This thing has been going on for 3 years now and it is nothing but a festering wound. The UK lawyers are dragging everything out in an attempt to drain time and treasure from Dr. Kearney and win the case by perhaps the only way they can. As mentioned multiple times before, a vast majority of Faculty, Residents, Fellows, Staff and the public have voiced support of Dr. Kearney. For me it has never been a question of liking or disliking Dr. Kearney, but rather the simple truth that the the lawyers and administration of this university have conspiratorially tried to fire someone for a behavior they have endorsed for over 25 years. Many of the conspirators that created this monster have moved out, or soon will be moving out. It is time to resolve this thing. Some have expressed the opinion that the only resolution is the returning of patient privileges, rescinding the sanctions imposed on Dr. Kearney and restitution of the financial losses incurred by this drawn out legal battle.  I am not sure all of that is totally necessary. I know the university lawyers tried to threaten and lowball Dr. Kearney into “taking the deal or we will ruin your career”. Maybe an acceptable deal might be worked out if they brought in some less arrogant, threatening and biased lawyers. Have they ever really asked Dr. Kearney what it would take to settle this?
 
3.  Ask the People: If the new Dean really wants to know the mood of his people and what might be causing discontent and morale problems, ask your faculty, physicians and staff.  One possibility is Surveys (e.g. hire an outside group to do it, start a personal blog like this one, etc.) in which folks can comment on issues or even raise issues of concern in an anonymous fashion.
 
4.  Review Administrators: Under the former EVPHA and Dean, 3 and 6-year administrator reviews were basically rubberstamped. Here again, if the new Dean really wishes to know what’s happening, afford the faculty and staff the opportunity to anonymously voice their perspectives with regard to how the various Deanlets, Chairs and Division Chiefs are performing.
 
5.  A Public Audit of KMSF: Silence all of those KMSF critics by having that detailed public audit. This might also help resolve some of the open record lawsuits.
 
Well once again, these are my limited suggestions and thoughts on the matter. Feel free to offer constructive ideas that I may have overlooked.