The posts in response to this article:
http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2011/10/upstates_medical_school_may_be.html
make me nervous.
Some highlights: From SyrAlum2011 "UpstateMd and Dancomm address some of the core issues within Upstate Medical University: lack of ANY oversight of upper management/leadership by the State of New York.
Lynn Clearly, Dean of Curriculum, failed on so many levels in the management and oversight of the medical student curriculum, she, herself, offered to resign when the initial report of possible suspension came to light. The Dean (or ex-dean now), while guilty of many sins, played the puppet to President Smith. The only reason Smith kept him as Dean was the need of Smiths need for a point person for his own failures and lack of competence.
Duggan was forced to step down as Chair, Department of Medicine, given a courtesy title of power within the hospital, now is being placed in the seat of interim Dean? He will 'oversee' his wife's (Cleary) failures? (This recipe smells familiar - ie, Smith hiring his wife to Chair a newly created department without a national search, and for which she holds woefully inadequate credentials.)
What the article fails to emphasize is UMU President Smith's role in the failed oversight of the medical school and management of University Hospital including the bullying of critics that has invited litigation against the institution. Smith has ushered in an era of intimidation tactics, release of employment threats and nepotism (for example, his wife to a new Chair position, Duggan and his wife) and annihilation of loyal dissent (including the termination of whistleblowers alerting the community and NYS DOH to hazardous conditions at UH) and now, national disgrace for the undergraduate medical program.
One is left to wonder: when will the stewards of SUNY-UMU wake up and address the essential failures and misdeeds of the chief executive? Where are SUNY Central, the Chancellor, the Trustees, the local and state press, responsible SUNY-UMU faculty and the community that depend so much on the solidity of the region's teaching-safety net hospital.
Probation for UMU and the associated national embarrassment signal the tipping point for the Smith administration. Syracuse, CNY and SUNY are well overdue to show this Cowboy and his cronies the stagecoach out of town."
From SDPlissKin: "It's not just the Academic end either. I know folks working at CGH and Upstate and they all say the same thing, management ought to be locked up in the psych ward with the rest of the crazy people. Policy changes on an almost weekly basis with no warning and seemingly no logic; minimum care standards aren't being met. Staff is over taxed and departments are at each other's throats. They need to fire ALL the management staff above a certain level and bring in anybody else."
From emanon1: "S.D. The union of CG and SUNY is a shotgun wedding at best. Regarding your comment about managerial skills, most hospital managers are people who have never had any proper training in the motivation and management of people other than the hospitals own inadequate, myopic, self developed in services. Upstate has some very capable physicians, they also have an effective mechanism of political debauchery which thwarts what is right in favor of what isn't. One physician, a kind and talented man, tried to make sure his residents had enough sleep to perform their tasks safely. The hospital ran him out on a rail, now he's in charge at another hospital of prominence. We lost his remarkable humanity and skill because he dared to do what's right and that my friends is truly what is wrong with SUNY."
and a lot of posts about how dirty Upstate is... yikes! Syracuse was my first choice after interviewing but now I'm reconsidering.
Please, respond 3rd year prez. Doesn't sound like the school is getting their administrative ducks in a row if they are promoting top adminstrators' husbands and wives to high level positions. Sounds like they are covering their butts.
The current dean of the medical school has resigned today.
