Here’s a copy of the letter that I received today, apparently from Dr. Errington Thompson and to the trauma staff at Mission Hospitals. I say “apparently” because I haven’t confirmed that this letter has been sent with Thompson.
I’m told the Mission Hospitals Board of Directors is/was scheduled to meet today to discuss the ongoing tensions between some local doctors, the issue which Thompson’s letter addresses in an angular sort of way.
In his letter, Thompson notes that a second high top-dog at Mission Hospitals has left the trauma department. Thompson gives his thoughts on why he thinks both Bill Shillinglaw and Mike Buechler left the hospital.
Now to a point about a letter I posted last week. As reported to me, a letter from a Mission doctor had been sent to local members of the media, urging continuing focus on the tensions between Mission doctors and hospital officials. I later learned that the doctor had decided not to send the letter. Though I felt it was still relevent, I removed that letter from the blog. There you have it.
Today’s letter:
As I’m sure that everyone has heard by now that Bill Shillinghaw has
announced that he is leaving the trauma service. Bill and Mike are
good people and great physicians. They have created a great program.
They will be missed.
Today, I met with Abe Arrillaga and Anne Conquest. All 3 of us pledged to stay here at Mission Hospital for the foreseeable future. We want to continue the tradition that Bill and Mike started of patient focused care.
There are tons of questions that I have heard over the last several months. I will do my best to answer a few of them in this e-mail. If you have further questions please don’t hesitate to grab one of us in the hall or drop us an e-mail.
What’s going to happen to the trauma service? For the understatement of the decade, we are going thru a period of transition. When we are done, with this transition period, we will have 7 trauma surgeons and 3 or 4 PA’s. The positions for the trauma surgeons have already been approved. We are currently in the interview process. On Monday we will be contacting one of the candidates and offering him a job. We hope to have another job offer out in the week or so. We are also looking for a trauma director. We have interviewed several great candidates. Hopefully, we can make a decision soon.
Why did Mike and Bill leave? While I can’t speak for Mike or Bill, I can say that there were some significant disagreements over manpower issues and a couple of other issues on the trauma service. It is my personal opinion, that the hospital administration and the trauma service made some huge mistakes in communication. Bridges were burned and it is hard to repair relationships after they have been so badly fractured. Now, this is my opinion. Abe and Anne may have a different view. All I can really say with assurance is that we are committed to moving forward and working with administration and all of the staff to deliver great care for our patients.
Are we going to continue to do trauma at Mission Hospital? Yes. Administration presented to the hospital board a strategic plan several months ago. In this plan, which was approved by the board, were 5 centers of excellence. One of the centers is Trauma and NeuroSciences. So, the trauma service has not only a commitment from the hospital administration but also from the Board. The trauma service will be at Mission Hospital well into the future.
What else can we expect? While, I can not predict the future, I do believe that the future is bright. Over the next several months, we will have some manpower issues. We have hired some physicians to take night call for us. Abe, Anne and I (and Bill thru December) will continue to cover the day shift and the day backup shifts. The temporary docs will only cover nights. So far, I believe that they will cover only 1 – 2 weeks of nights per month. This may change over coming months, if we have problems hiring qualified trauma surgeons in a timely fashion. Although we want help, we want quality help that will continue the standard of excellence that was started here by Mike and Bill.Special note for the Trauma office staff, TCU and NTICU personnel – I know that this has been a VERY difficult time. With the lost of Mike Dawson and the turnover in both units, everyone is stressed. We know. We are stressed also but I think that it will get better over the coming months. Hopefully, we can plan some event over the next several weeks where we can chill, relax and chat about life, liberty and the like. We love working with all of you.
If you have any questions, please feel free to e-mail me or any of my partners.
Errington C. Thompson, MD
Trauma/Surgical Critical Care
Mission Hospital
Asheville, NC
12 Comments
Evil is always stupid and unseparable…….. You have to be really intelligent to remember your lies. Enough said!!!
HR is full of evil people. Sandra Goodwin has told so many lies and destroyed many careers. I used to just think she was stupid but she is truly stupid and evil.
It is sad that Mission’s history will now be divisive with the before Damore and after Damore……
I am curious as to why the ONLY SERVICE LINE mentioned is Trauma. There are many other clinical areas that excel in what they do and in their service to the community. Are the others content with status quo???
There are also other clinical caregivers involved in the care of the Trauma pt-give some credit to ER, PACU and also the support areas of Radiology and all the employees who care for these pts!! THEY ARE NOT CARED FOR IN A VACUM.
Joe Damore’s "resignation" is certainly a nice surprise! However, there is much more to this story besides the trauma service.
Where are the rest of the recommendations? The atrocious behaviors exhibited by JD were the tip of the ice berg. He allowed, if not encouraged, these same behaviors in his "team" members aka the vice presidents.
Let’s not forget the following areas still in need of serious investigation.
Maria Rolloff and her dictates within the HR department. Ms. Rolloff has performed her own number on the entire organization. She has allowed departmental "re-designs" that have brought the clinical ares to their knees! She has used Dr Sig, an ANONYMOUS internal email network, to bully and fire highly qualified clinical leaders. She has "re-designed" the HR department and turned the HR reps into nothing more than a bunch of pit vipers and bullies. The HR department now micro-manages any corrective action to be certain that they are "getting the right people thrown off the JD bus." She has little to NO clinical knowledge and has destroyed the trust between the employees and management. The poor HR reps have been dumped on to the point that they must work ten or twelve hour days to get through the crap that hits their desks. Take a look at the current employee satisfatction results and the process that Ms. Rolloff put in place "to deal" with all of the departments that fell in the "danger" areas. It is abysmal! Employee sessions are being led by the HR representatives and the inconsistency in the communication is a joke! The HR representatives are trying to figure out how to divert employees attention from the terrible organizational results and focus them on "feel good" items. What a waste of time! We need real communication about real solutions! Don’t tell the employees that you understand that they are feeling understaffed, write an action plan around hiring more employees, only then to dump it back on the manager or supervisor to figure out how to accomplish this goal with the "benchmarks" and other hoops that must be navigated to even get a position posted! The employee satisfaction report was ALL about TRUST! Every level below VP is begging for TRUST. And it can NOT be accomplished with the same people that are in those seats now.
As was stated in the letter above, some relationships have been damaged beyond repair. How can you trust someone when you have documented proof that this person has lied to you over and over and over again? It’s time for a divorce!
Kristi Sink, the ambulatory VP, is another person that has committed atrocities in the name of JD and BA. She too has "re-aligned" her departments to the point that every employee is angry and afraid. And I do mean EVERY employee! Take a look at the cacophany she has created in lab and radiology. Interview the supervisors and managers of those areas, the ones that are left, and see what they think of her inconsistent, dishonest and bullying communication style. Ask Ms. Sink about her belief in "anonymous" letters. She has them flowing under her office door on a weekly basis. Gee, why would anyone in a leadership postion encourage and use anonymouse notes? Would it not be the strong leader who looks to the leaders reporting to her for advice? And YES she takes action based on these "anonymous" allegations. Finally, look at the organizational charts that she has created and compare them against other organizations of Missions size and complexity. Comparable departments with three or four managers now have one or two if they are lucky. It is obvious that she has NO idea what it takes to run ANY clinical area.
These are but two more of the many areas in need of help.
Help to give the employees a new trust and hope for our community hospital.
Help to give our patients the care that they deserve.
Help!
Hooo-boy, "Spare Me." You hit the bull’s-eye! I just saw the latest post on Ashvegas announcing Joe Damore’s departure at the end of January. Could be that in a year or so, "connivance" will no longer be considered an administrative or clinical skill and Dr. T might find himself scrambling. Let’s hope.
Happy days might not be here again but it looks like they might be on their way.
as someone who works with ALL of the trauma surgeons–I can only say the BILL AND MIKE will be missed–they are fine gentlemen and top-notch surgeons—they loss leave the staff with heavy hearts—it is impossible to replace these very talented men—I am sure we will get other fine trauma surgeons BUT noone can replace DRs B and S….their knowledge and excellence doesn’t come along often!
What is this letter? A bunch of political crap. Seems Thompson should get into politics and out of medicine. He obviously has more of a flare for it. Where was he when Dr. Buechler and Dr. Shillinglaw were being threatened by Administration for trying to get more manpower and improved patient care. If he is so dedicated to the Trauma Service Dept. when did this happen?
Thompson when have you championed the cause to administration for quality patient care, the staff or any anything else for that matter? Seems from this letter you certainly do have your own agenda. I have to agree w/ "Spare me" in all thoughts especially that last one!
This is a joke, right? It has to be.Pleeaassse tell me it’s a joke.
Your opinion as you call it is unbelievable. Disagreements over manpower, mistakes in communication. Are you kidding me? When is threatening to fire someone for their speaking out about the eventual downward spiral of patient care if more physicians aren’t hired, a mistake in communication. Were you ever there fight the good fight too? Did you ever champion for the nurses, staff and patients? But now you are going to save us. Your going to work with administration. You always did.
This coming from a surgeon that if skills were measured on a scale of 1 to 10, with Drs. Buechler and Shillinglaw being a 10 plus, the best and the brightest, you wouldn’t even be allowed in the room with the scale. Please spare us all any more communications.
This just sounds like more of the same. Where has Dr. Thompson been? What sort of conversation and promise brought him to the conclusion that things will be just great if only HE could be in charge? Is he gullible or is he culpable regarding the mess Mission is in and Trauma Services’ specific chaos? Damore, et al WILL have people who owe them and will follow orders without question.
I cannot believe the board will take effective action to restore Mission to its previous position of excellence with a focus on patient care. This is all just too depressing!
The savior has arrived? Let’s hear from some of Dr. T’s work associates. Rumor has it he’s got an agenda, and has for some time. Just maybe he was part of the problem. Too much spin for me.
The top docs were committed to the patients, hospital and their staff; that we know. Why the allegations they weren’t? Thompson is a politician at heart. This looks like a blatent attempt to position himself.
I am highly suspicious of this letter. Surely someone wiith so many years of education wouldn’t have so many grammatical and punctuation errors, would they?
Well, at least 2 former VPs I know of tried to get Joe Damore’s approval on hiring ONE more trauma surgeon (since 2004)….RVUs were gathered, revenues and expenses charted and from that time until Dr. Buechler had had enough of being threatned and bullied, the other physicians realizing what was happening joined forces (thank you, doctors), THEN AND ONLY THEN did Joe Damore and Brian Aston wishing to save their horrid skins put yet another SPIN on it (which Dr. Thompson it looks like you have bought into Joe ad Brian’s song and dance OR what have the toxic team promised YOU)…ONLY after the physicians had had enough of the bullying and threats did Joe and Brian in an effort to appease the anger of the physicians decide to ALLOW Trauma to hire the much needed trauma physicians, I remind you lthis all happned after Dr. Buechler had resigned and the physicians stood up for their rights as dedicated members of a highly respected medical community.
Wake up Thompson and smell Joe and Brian’s stench .