Here it is:
Newspaper junkie is wise..when will we get the true facts, instead of all of this rumor mongoring, piling on, and half-truths. Most of the comments that have been shared address a “vast subject”, with “half-vast knowledge.
As a physician on the staff at Mission, I know that there were many occasions during which I was sad to witness the unraveling and emotional deterioration of our trauma director, through stress, burnout, and just plaiin being tired. There was considerable strife in his own service, and many of his colleagues were trying to develop a plan to help him through a personal crisis.
My specialty has dealt with JD frequently during the past two years, and while we don’t always agree, he must serve the role of a ‘change agent’ that guides the system into a very ominous future – relative to reform and new competition. We don’t like change at Mission, particularly we physicians. But the folly of firing the change agent just because some of our doctors don’t want to take call from a concerned physician at 3am on a Sunday morning, is ludicrous.
What will the Board do when the new guy/gal introduces needed change? and the next?? and the next?? I spoke with the blue-ribbon committee under Mr. Moore last week, and I feel we should await his findings and suggestions before we make stupid decisions.
24 Comments
Very, very concerned about the quality of the doctors at Mission. The cut-throat attacks from specialty physicians towards surgeons, both that may have my life in their hands some day…..frightening to me. If the physicians can not work together, then I do not want to be a patient in the Mission system. I would question that a lack of proper referral, if needed, would be ignored or dismissed if this "tug of war" wages on. Immature, self-righteous, inappropriate, narcisistic, etc…could go on and on. I also strongly question an Administration that has allowed the morale and distrust pf the nurses and other hospital staff to grow. Straighten up before more citizens of Asheville and surrounding communities, decide to go elsewhere and/or support new and more progressive hospital options.
The first domino has fallen, Asheville cardiology will partner with Joey’s Mission.
Duke and JD says it all
Wow JJE!
You didn’t waste time in pursuing your law degree just after gaining your M.D. Indicates to me that you weren’t quite happy with your profession from the get go. Have you ever cared for patients hands-on? Or did you feel you were becoming a whiny, malcontent physician?
I too suggest if you’re not happy- quit! With all your qualifications I’m sure there are a plethora of job opportunities just waiting for you. And I feel certain there would be numerous people willing to write you a good-riddance reference letter.
Duke University B.S. 1979, M.D. 1983, J.D. 1988, M.B.A. 2004
I would certainly prefer to work with most of the automobile mechanics here than the whiney, malcontent, greedy, arrogant surgeons – unfortunately.
As I and others have suggested, if you are unhappy….
LEAVE!!!!
JJE, you clearly a need a BIG hug. Were the big bad surgeons mean to you in the sandbox? Did they kick your inner child’s ASSton? Maybe the next time you or a loved one is critically injured you can seek the Midas Touch at your local auto mechanic shop, where the cerebrally superior are employed. Then you’ll really get the TLC you paid for. Thanks for the fodder – everyone reading these posts knows you are an administrative plant. And not a very bright one. PS: Did you get your MD online from Phoenix U.?
ERUOK?
Thank you!
Actually, I have been here almost as long as "Saint" Buechler and predate the current administration by about 5 years. The changes that have occurred are welcome, for the most part.
JJE
While this is a public forum and I would never question your right to express yourself I must say you exemplify the type of "professional" this administration has brought in. Good job!
Sorry, not a hospitalist here 🙂
I hardly believe that cerebrally challenged surgeons are "real" doctors.
Seems all they are good for right now is whining and complaining.
It appears that they are not concerned about their patients at all, just their pocketbooks!!
It appears the Hospital Board is just now getting its "arms around" how deep and serious the problems are at Mission, both internally and with the physicians. They really did not fathom the culture Damore and Company had created in their five year reign. Now the board will enter a phase of how to solve the issue. If it means replacing the "toxic team" then they will need an interim leadership plan in place before they can pull the trigger. All of us need to keep the "heat on them" but also realize these folks are wrestling with a BIG decision and have to consider how best to handle it so additional damage isn’t done as part of any transition. The best advice I can offer to Damore, Aston, Roloff and Ford is to tender their resignations–sooner rather than later. It won’t repair the damage they have done, but at least it would bring to a close this terrible chapter in Mission’s long, proud history.
Well "JJE" hospital physician, you must work as a hospitalist, and you must be close with the new CEO that JD dubbed for the "mission medical associates" entity! Just so happens he is a good little hospitalist too! You do realize that without the "real" doctors you all would not have anyone to take care of right???
JJE, your insight and respect for other specialties is invaluable. You deserve a raise…
" … Many of us believed the invitations to offer our experience and recommendations to streamline delivery of care and improve outcomes. We soon discovered that enhanced patient care (that can often mean finding ways to deliver improved care at less cost) was not the goal at all. The goal seems to be turning hard working, dedicated, and highly skilled people into terrified serfs. If one is a physician and feels the pressure, imagine how nurses, technologists, and others feel when they learn that only downcast eyes and perfect silence fit the required behavior.
I agree completely that Mission needs a change! That change has been clearly defined in post after post. Joe Damore and his ego-crazed administration need to be changed – as in gone from Mission and Asheville. .."
AMEN DISMAYED!! Speaking from way down on the org chart and personal witness of Administration from working on the MEZZ…. change must be made – after the special committee meetings, if major changes in the leadership do not occur, staff morale will continue to drop (i.e… what is the reason staff is kept from reading the results of the staff satisfaction survery? Alleged Answer: It takes a long time to put an HR spin on the fact that employees do not trust leadership.. not managers/directors but LEADERSHIP, JD.. BA.. FF..KS..MF!) … and there’s no way it can be honestly said that the climate of fear and intimidation at MH for the last several years doesn’t affected patient care no matter how hard the dedicated clinical employees and others (the one’s who haven’t been forced to resign..jobs have been eliminated, etc.) continue to perform their jobs in a professional, caring manner!
I am indeed, unfortunately, a Mission employed physician.
As I indicated, and you illustrated in spades, the whining and complaining is simply intolerable. Change is what is happening, and like it or not Joe was hired to effect that change. If you are unhappy, LEAVE!!!!!
I will be, I suspect, because I am woefully underpaid.
The surgical folks, from what I can tell, are grossly OVERpaid.
Or perhaps they get paid overtime for complaining and whining……
Look-out folks-with the departure of Mile Buechler so goes the trauma program at MMH.Money not lives is the bottom line for our wonderful Mission Hosp.If Joe Damore is ever involved in a trauma he would be blessed to look up and know MB is in charge of his care.Trauma Services is losing the greatest Doc e have ever had.
First, I don’t think you work for MSJ as a physician. Second, if you do, I guess your sadness outweighed any kind of professionalism, since you decided to pile on those untruths about the trauma director.
This is not about one doctor or one department in the hospital. It is not about national health care reform. This is about an administration that is using intimidation, half-truths, and misdirection to push its agenda.
Change is how the trauma director, his partners, the nurses and supporting staff created one of the best trauma centers in the State. Change is what they expected from the administration, when they requested another experienced surgeon be brought onto the team.
I don’t think any of the doctors or nurses at MSJ are concerned about some abstract notion of change, of what may or may not be the new climate in healthcare, pending national reform. I think the doctors and nurses are unwilling to compromise patient care, unwilling to compromise the hospital’s reputation, and unwilling to back-down from intimidation and mistreatment.
Dismayed Indeed.
ANYONE WHO KNOWS JD’S HISTORY IN MI KNOWS THE COMPLAINTS ARE TRUE! That simple folks. What is happening here is a repeat performance. As such, anyone who is defending him or ANYTHING he is doing/has done is suspect. Someone please take the time to force out the reasons why he "left" his last position. PLEASE! The fact finding committee will bear out the complaints. Regardless of what anyone thinks about change, his methodoolgy and ultimate purpose is destructive….and some of the docs outside the hospital who are still in his corner are there because of cohersion.
September 15th can’t come soon enough…and if it doesn’t mean the end of the JD wrecking crew, something is amiss!
A "very ominous future"….possibly under our current CEO yes, but let’s face it, the landscape of health care has been changing for the past 20 years this is certainly not something new on the horizon. Thanks to the dedication and foresight of our previous administrators and local physicians, especially Mike Buechler, this dynamic process of reform began in Asheville 10 years ago, leaving Mission a national model for the delivery of high quality/low cost health care. I believe you have presented a rather mind numbing and simplistic view of the "issues" currently being discussed. As for getting the facts rather than all this "rumor mongering" (which you clearly perpetuated in your post) and "half-truths" please refer to the post of June 4th by Asheville Native, you may find this enlightening. I believe it’s time for structured dialogue regarding initiatives of importance to us, us being the entire community, as the delivery of care and patient safety are at the core of this controversy. While I admire a management team that has a willingness to recognize mistakes; an entire executive team that clearly has no understanding of operational challenges is totally unacceptable. We have highly paid executives that under perform and focus on acquisition rather than patient outcomes. The staff has become disillusioned. We question the leadership and we now question the boards willingness to continue to follow its current management.
Surgeons have an over-inflated sense of self worth and importance.
They get paid exorbitantly for little work, and the work is comparable to what your auto mechanic does – but probably less difficult.
As a Mission employed physician, I am sick and tired of hearing their whining and complaining.
I don’t know anything about Mike Buechler’s personal crisis to which you allude, but I do know that, however it came down, Mission administratiors are damn fools to let him go out the door. As to the overworked, burnt out idea, maybe that’s because admin has been unwilling to add enough physicians to the Trauma Service. There is no way I could work the way those docs do. I can’t imagine you can find one person involved with trauma at Mission who would give anything but the highest praise to Dr Buechler. As an aside, I believe there is not one person in the NeuroTrauma ICU who is buying any of the garbage being fed to us by the higher ups in nursing administration on the issues raised by his resignation.
Oh, my. Once again, Joe Damore is just trying to bring about needed change and the staff of Mission is too backsward, provincial, slow, and ignorant to recognize what is happening or cooperate with the change. How insulting! Most of us have heard this song before.
Without significant change Mission would still be a little dark hovel of a hospital perched on a hill without adequate cardiovascular surgery, NICU, NEUROSURGERY, etc. Change is always ongoing and is always needed. It would be hard to find anyone who would argue that point. The issue is what kind of change and what is the change meant to accomplish? Secrecy, accusations, and threats do not typically indicate an agenda intended to accomplish positive change. Many of us believed the invitations to offer our experience and recommendations to streamline delivery of care and improve outcomes. We soon discovered that enhanced patient care (that can often mean finding ways to deliver improved care at less cost) was not the goal at all. The goal seems to be turning hard working, dedicated, and highly skilled people into terrified serfs. If one is a physician and feels the pressure, imagine how nurses, technologists, and others feel when they learn that only downcast eyes and perfect silence fit the required behavior.
I agree completely that Mission needs a change! That change has been clearly defined in post after post. Joe Damore and his ego-crazed administration need to be changed – as in gone from Mission and Asheville.
Still Dismayed.
I work at Mission and hate it. Mission is the most Mickey Mouse outfit I have ever been affiliated with. The things I see at Mission would blow your mind! Keep digging Ashvegas! It is certain you will eventually come up with a national story?????
How naive to think that the current "change agent" is not the problem.This is indeed a local matter and does not reflect the changes going on in the rest of the country–why do you think there is this much controversy if this is just a change in medicine that everyone knows is taking place?Bullied,lied to coerced,bad relationships with major health care providers in WNC,Carolinas Med Cte at the gate–what does it take to wake people up?The "Blue Ribbon Panel" thank goodness chaired by someone who does not have a history of the cronyism that has been the hallmark of the medically uneducated Board has its work cut out.They HAVE to proceed with the investigation as free from administration and board input as possible.Talk to the people involved and get the answers if these folks dont feel too threatened by JD et al to tell the truth.
The employees at mission are asking for the same treatment that you are requesting for JD. Investigate his and his teams decisions and see if they have treated people fairly. Look at their decisions to tell good leaders that they MUST resign and work a two months notice so appearances can be maintained. And then JD has the audacity to LIE about his dictates or blame others, or better yet play the spin game like the consummate spin jockey he is! These articles and posts haven’t even exposed the tip of the iceberg! If an article really came out about the stuff that is going on inside mission it would be made into a Michael Moore movie! Hey, there’s an idea….how about the employees just take this to someone outside of this small community power circle and see what happens!