Minutes of the Council Meetings >>

SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
SPEAKER/DEAN’S MEETING
TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 2004
S U M M A R Y

I. APPROVAL OF MINUTES

The minutes from the Dean’s meeting of February 24, 2004 and from the Speaker’s Meeting of March 16, 2004 were unanimously approved.

II. FACULTY CLUB SURVEY

Dr. Cleary reported that he met with Richard Iacino to review the results from the Faculty Club survey. He stated that there was a 40% response to the survey and the overall reaction was 89% in favor of the Faculty Club. Dr. Mian reiterated that the response was very favorable and some faculty even agreed to pay an annual membership fee if required. Dr. Lewis stated that after discussions with Ron Bogue and the architect, the first floor of the Sewell Building seemed like the preferred location for construction of the Faculty Club. Dr. Lewis thanked the Council for their cooperation and patience throughout the long planning process of the Faculty Club. He also extended his gratitude to the faculty for their participation in the survey.

III. UMMG SEPARATION

Dr. Jorge Guerra, Chair of the UMMG, reported on the possible plans for the UMMG separation. He explained that a letter had been sent on March 10 to all clinical faculty which outlined the reasons for the meeting regarding these plans. Dr. Guerra summarized that for the past 2 years, meetings were held every 2 weeks, which included department chairs, senior UMMG leadership, and significant support from the administrative staff to brainstorm different ways to anticipate and redirect growing financial challenges at the medical school. He noted that every recommendation developed lacked cohesiveness within us and particularly between the medical and Coral Gables campuses. Dr. Guerra explained that after the recent financial crisis involving malpractice and the composite fringe benefits, interested groups were further energized to review more closely the current relationship between UMMG, the School of Medicine and the University. He added that these groups evaluated the internal governance and management of the clinical practice, the time conflicting priorities of the clinical practice, and related issues of the School of Medicine non-clinical departments, and the University and Board of Trustees. School Faculty Council Dr. Guerra stated that a review of the financial impediments to the school’s growth brought about by the increase in malpractice and CFB rates crisis afforded the UMMG an opportunity to evaluate ways to reduce the current constraints on expansion. He noted that President Shalala and Mr. Marvin O’Quinn were informed in November of these impediments to growth, and other issues concerning the critical relationship between UMMG and medical school. Dr. Guerra reported that Dr. Barth Green had provided the information with the help of the Growth and Expansion Taskforce. He stated that President Shalala believed in a reorganization that included a separation from the UMMG and consultants specializing in reorganization of academic institutions had been contracted. Dr. Guerra said that the purpose of the meeting held on March 10 was to present the summary developed by these consultants. He added that the summary included methods to successfully break away from the UMMG but that we were in the early stages of reviewing a business plan for reorganization of the entire clinical entity. Dr. Guerra stated that the group was reviewing University policies and procedures considered to be hindering the growth and development of the clinical practice. He added that the group was also reviewing other financial issues, creating a model more uniform across the different clinical departments and reorganizing the governance structure of the UMMG. Dr. Guerra said that the final report would be circulated to the department chair in approximately 3 to 4 months.

IV. ADMISSIONS COMMITTEE ANNUAL REPORT

Dr. Robert Hinkley reported that there were 26 faculty members originally appointed to the regular Admissions Committee by the School Faculty Council and, in addition, the FAU faculty appointed three members as part of the plan for the UMSM@FAU regional campus. He also stated that there were five senior medical students who served on the Admission Committee. Dr. Hinkley noted that several members of the Admissions Committee deserved special recognition for their hard work. These members included Dr. Rick Weisman, who provided outstanding leadership as chair, and Drs. Judith Post, David Huang and Brian Cutler. He reported that the most exciting accomplishment of the Admission Committee this year was the implementation of the admission process online. Dr. Hinkley explained that with the new web-based system, committee members could review applicant files, screen files for interviews, write and upload their interview reports directly to the applicant’s electronic file and vote on all candidates for admission through the internet. He stressed that the new online process made it more convenient for members to do their job. Dr. Hinkley stated that with the new online admissions process, the committee screened 1,243 completed applications and performed a total of 3,714 screening evaluations, which was an increase of over 20% from last year. The committee also interviewed 403 applicants (up from 300 last year). He reiterated that the interview reports were entered online by the interviewers themselves and as a results the committee did not have to deal with illegible, hand-written reports. Dr. Hinkley noted that the lack of participation by some of the committee members was a continued problem and the Faculty Council had removed 3 members in March. He believed that two other members should be removed and he would bring forth his recommendations to the Council.

V. ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES COMMITTEE ANNUAL REPORT

Dr. Ofengand reported that the Administrative Services Committee (ASC) functioned as a trouble-shooter and problems in the form of complaints were brought to the attention of the ASC members. He stated that his year problems raised involved the Department of Sponsored Programs (SP) and the Medical School Purchasing Department (PD). Dr. Ofengand said that the ASC dealt with these problems by conducting a survey of the medical school departments with research faculty. He explained that the survey concluded that there were twice as many problems with SP as there was with PD and the results had been compiled and forwarded to the respective departments and meetings with senior administrators from both departments followed. Dr. Ofengand believed that the overall response from the PD was positive and a serious effort to reply to the written criticisms would take place. He noted that SP had two types of responses; 1) the problems were the fault of the administrators who send faulty paperwork and, 2) SP staff was too small for the increased volume of work. The ASC felt that based on the response from SP, the problems would only get worse and not better unless the Faculty Council took action. Dr. Ofengand added that the ASC would monitor SP and would conduct another survey next Fall. He reported that the only thing that was accomplished was that someone would contact the faculty directly via email when there was a problem instead of the department administrator. Dr. Bauambach stated that problems reported in the annual summaries were handled by forming subcommittees of the Council to examine the issues in more depth. She believed that the issues presented by Dr. Ofengand and prior history of problems with SP warranted the formation of a subcommittee to further look into these issues. Dr. Lewis suggested that an entire Speaker’s meeting should be devoted to discuss the problems early next year.

VI. SCIENTIFIC AWARDS COMMITTEE ANNUAL REPORT

Dr. Wanner reported that the Scientific Awards Committee (SAC) held five meetings and the major focus was to generate a new funding portfolio to review Glaser Awards and Florida King Biomedical Research Program. He stated that the guiding principle underlying the SAC program was that the award would lead to new, ongoing or additional extramural grant support. Dr. Wanner explained that the new research funding opportunities through SAC were announced to the medical faculty. They consisted of: 1) emergency grants for equipment or bridge funding for ongoing research projects (up to $20,000), with applications due on the 20th of each month and to be reviewed monthly. Fifty percent of the total budget (approximately $100,000) was allocated to this program. 2) Non-emergency grants, not to exceed $20,000, with an application deadline of November 3, 2003 starting date of January 1, 2004 and a grant period not to exceed twelve months. Three types of non-emergency grants were available: Equipment grants designed to support the purchase of new equipment, mentored pilot study grants designed for investigators who are planning to generate preliminary data for a new extramural grant proposal, and collaborative research/training development grants intended to bring together NIH supported investigators from multiple disciplines to enable successful NIH applications for program project and center grants. Fifty percent of the budget (approximately $100,000) was allocated to non-emergency grants. Dr. Wanner reported that as of March 2004, four emergency grant applications were received and two were funded and twenty-five non-emergency grant applications were received and one equipment grants and five pilot grants were recommended for funding. Dr. Wanner’s recommendations to the Council included:

1. The current committee composition is weighted towards clinical faculty. Basic research applications have outnumbered clinical investigations this year and in previous years. It is recommended that new committee appointments include a larger percentage of basic scientists than previously.
2. The current SAC programs should be continued for at least another year in order to be able to assess their success. However, this should not preclude new programs if appropriate. While a total budget of $200,000 does not leave much room for changes, the committee has demonstrated its ability to remain flexible despite these fiscal limitations.
3. SAC should develop a formal process to evaluate outcomes by requesting progress reports and success in obtaining extramural funding by those who receive SAC awards.

1. Issue: Use of a standard template of the Chair’s Letter to External Referees (provided by the Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs to every Chair) resulted in a better quality letter of request from many Department Chairs. However, use of the template was not universal, with some department chairs requesting letters in a way that resulted in letters, which did not address critical points upon which candidates are judged. Recommendation: Make it mandatory for all Chairs to use the Standard Template of Request for External Reviewer’s Letters. Any packet containing a non-standard Chair’s letter will be returned to the department and if there insufficient time to make the P & T deadlines, candidates will need to wait a year until the next cycle.
2. Issue: External referees are not always selected appropriately. Reviewers who have a relationship to the candidate (e.g. mentors, current or prior collaborators) are not appropriate and such letters do a disservice to the candidate. The Dean should be asked to ensure that Chairs exercise adequate triage on the selection of external referees. Recommendation: Inappropriate External Referees, as judged by Dr. Rosenthal prior to the P & T process, will have files returned to departments with instructions to select new External Referees. If assigned for review prior to detection of inappropriateness, P & T reviewers will contact Dr. Rosenthal with findings. If Dr. Rosenthal and Chair of P & T agree that an inappropriate external referee was used, the candidate will not be reviewed in that cycle. CHAIRS MUST ENSURE THAT THE P & T PROCESS IS NOT CORRUPTED BY USE OF INAPPROPRIATE EXTERNAL REVIEWERS.
3. Issue: Chair’s recommendations are considered very seriously by the APT and when a chair’s recommendation is positive for several candidates who do not fulfill the minimum requirements for promotion, the APT has no chose but to vote down multiple departmental promotions. Recommendation: Unsuitable candidates, while eligible to stand for promotion, have to be judged according to the Promotion By-Laws of the School Council. Chairs could help the process by using these guidelines when writing Chair recommendations and making appeals. The Committee uses the by-laws to guide the review process; fewer conflicting opinions reduce the volume of opposing judgments forwarded to the Dean and would expedite the review process.
4. Issue: Teaching evaluations are not being done in a standardized way across departments. Teaching evaluations must follow a standardized format and scoring by Chairs must reflect real averages from real evaluations. Recommendation: It is recommended that Dr. Rosenthal work with each departmental chair to develop a standard evaluation tool for that department which would capture unique teaching opportunities that are department-specific, but also contain standard elements across all departments.
5. For some departments, supporting evidence to validate teaching scores are not provided (e.g. how many students or residents did the evaluations, sample/explanation of departmental evaluation system/form, copies of evaluations, some evidence that a Chair’s score of teaching effort is validated by attached raw data). Consequently, teaching scores from certain departments end up being collectively regarded as unreliable and undervalued in the determination process, based upon the Committee’s observation that all candidates from that department annually achieve the highest possible score in every teaching category listed, and are voted thus by 100% of the department’s voting faculty. Recommendation: Teaching evaluations MUST follow a standardized format and scoring by Chairs must reflect real averages from real evaluations. It is recommended that Dr. Rosenthal work with each departmental chair to develop a standard teaching evaluation tool for that department which would capture unique teaching opportunities that are department-specific, but also contain standard elements across all departments. Chairs are also encouraged to instruct voting faculty in their departments of the inappropriateness of voting “excellent” for teaching on every departmental candidate. Grade inflation does not benefit the department’s candidates. Use of the Educator’s Portfolio is strongly urged for promotions in the Tenure and CE tracks.
6. Issue: Young faculty needs to have this begin from the time of appointment. Both clinical and research faculty are noted to have difficulty obtaining promotion because many seem unaware of criteria on which they will be judged. While the Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs’ office continues to hold seminars and workshops to educate young faculty in this arena, the prime mentoring responsibility rests upon the departmental chair. Large teaching loads or administrative appointments conferred prematurely in the academic life of a young faculty member make promotion insecure if they prevent the faculty member from performance that the University considers meritorious for promotion. Recommendation: Mentoring of junior and mid-level faculty in the promotion process should begin early and not be deferred to the promotion year