Attendance by Officers and Members of the Executive Board:
 

President	Loren Laine	present
President Elect	Harvey Kaslow	present
Secretary	Peter Heseltine	present
Treasurer	Jerry Gates	present
Past President	Harvey Kaslow	present
Member-at-Large	Kathryn Challoner	present
Member-at-Large	Dennis O'Leary	present
Member-at-Large	Rebecca Sokol

Representation at the Meeting:
 

Anesthesiology	James Daniel
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology	Frank Markland
Cardiothoracic Surgery
Cell and Neurobiology	Elyse Schauwecker
Children's Hospital	Gary Lerner
Emergency Medicine
Family Medicine	Allen Abbott
Medicine
Molecular Microbiology and Immunology	Joe Landolph
Neurological Surgery	Donald Larsen
Neurology
Norris Medical Library
Obstetrics and Gynecology
Ophthalmology
Orthopedics
Otolaryngology	Daniel Kempler
Pathology
Pediatrics
Physiology and Biophysics	Austin Mircheff
Preventive Medicine	Daniel Stramm
Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Radiation Oncology
Radiology	Micahel Terk
Rancho Los Amigos Hospital
Surgery	Jeffrey Peters
Urology

Also attending: Joseph Landolph, Ron Kaufman, Robert Stellwagen

1.     Call to Order and Approval of Minutes:

The Meeting was called to order at 12:06 by the President, Loren Laine.

As a quorum was not present,  the minutes of August 3, 1999 meeting were reviewed and amended only.
 

Bruce Gross withdrew as Representative because he had served two consecutive terms, and in keeping with the Bylaws could not serve a third term. Having been called, nominations for representative and alternate were requested. The Assembly reasoned that nominations could only come from the Department electing the representative. Those accepted were Richard Lamb (tenured), Daniel Holschnieder (tenure track) and Tom Hicklin (non-tenure track). There being no further nominations, the slate was closed at the end of the meeting. An election will be held promptly.

3.    New Faculty Tenure Taskforce

Clive Taylor, Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, reported on the status of the New Faculty Tenure (Dean's Advisory) Taskforce which he chaired. Austin Mircheff represented the MFA on this taskforce that met during the last academic year and also sits on the Academic Senate Taskforce examining this issue. Because the Academic Senate has such a taskforce, Dr. Taylor's taskforce was placed on hold, after discussion with the Provost. A tenure document relevant to faculty at Children's  Hospital is also under development. The UPC Senate Group examining this issue will likely have a document by December 1999.

3.    LCME visit

Clive Taylor, Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, reported on the upcoming LCME interim visit which will take place November 16 - 18, 1999. Their focus will be the issues raised at the last visit: Curriculum, (student and ongoing Faculty evaluations of the curriculum) and the CPSA. A program of their visit will be forthcoming by the middle of October. A response in response to the LCME's inquiries will be sent this week. He described a number of issues on which progress had been made and other items which will require review by the Finance Committee

4.    CPSA update

Ron Kaufman, Chief of Staff LAC+USC Healthcare Network, reported that the Auditor Comptroller had not finished the Board of Supervisors 30 day assignment to evaluate the cost efficacy of the CPSA (and the contracts with Harbor/UCLA and King Drew). It was likely that the report would not be available for 90 days or more from the original request in June.

5.    Proposal to re-organize the functions of the LAC+USC Medical Staff

Ron Kaufman, Chief of Staff LAC+USC Healthcare Network, reported that Mr. Roberto Rodriguez, the CEO of LAC+USC has issued a "Proposal for the Restructuring of the Quality Management Program of DHS and LAC+USC Healthcare Network" which is under review by Dr. Don Thomas, Associate Director of Health Services for Clinical and Medical Affairs, LAC DHS.  The proposal, if implemented, will considerably alter the peer process by which cases are reviewed and so how the overall quality of medical care is judged. It is also likely to alter the disciplinary process for physicians. The MFA, APLACH and an Ad Hoc Working Group headed by Gene Berman, President of the Attending Staff Association, urge all clinical faculty to review the proposal and the associated documents. Further updates and discussion on this topic will be considered by the MFA. Full details of the plan (and relevant documents) are on-line at the MFA website  http://www.usc.edu/schools/medicine/faculty/mfa/QA/index.html

6.    Academic Senate Planning Retreat - Report

The Medical School Senators reported on the Academic Senate retreat. Details of the White Papers and the Provost's remarks can be found at the Academic Senate web site.  http://www.usc.edu/dept/acsen/

7.    Letters of offer to new faculty

Harvey Kaslow, President-elect MFA, distributed copies of letters-of-offer that are apparently being sent to newly-recruited faculty.  Dr. Kaslow learned of the documents while attending the EC meeting of September 1 as a representative of the MFA.  The letters were presented to the EC by Senior Associate Dean Leslie Bernstein, who stated they were the result of much hard work involving the Office of the Provost and University Counsel.  At the EC meeting, Dr. Kaslow requested copies of the letters, which were provided to him that day.  Two forms of letters were obtained, labeled:

Letter of offer for tenure track faculty - all ranks
Letter of offer for clinical track faculty - all ranks

The letters are in the form of a contract, as they ask the recipient to "indicate your acceptance of the appointment terms as outlined herein by signing and returning the original of this letter..."

After brief study of the letters by Dr. Kaslow and members of the MFAEB, it appeared that the terms and conditions in these letters-of-offer contracts could be different from those in the standard faculty contracts issued to other University faculty.  If the terms are different, the question arises as to what process approved these differences.  In light of these questions, Dr. Kaslow quickly invited both Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs Leslie Bernstein and Vice-Provost for Faculty and Minority Affairs Martin Levine to provide statements introducing the letters-of-offer to the MFA, but neither administrator provided any introductory comments.

Further discussion of the documents was deferred to later meetings.

8.  Adjournment: There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 1:11 PM