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
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	Jim Daniel
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology	Bob Stellwagen
Cardiothoracic Surgery
Cell and Neurobiology
Children's Hospital
Emergency Medicine	Michael Orlinsky
Family Medicine	Allen Abbott
Medicine	Om Sharma
Molecular Microbiology and Immunology	Joe Landolph
Neurological Surgery	Donald Larsen
Neurology
Norris Medical Library	Candice Benjes
Obstetrics and Gynecology
Ophthalmology
Orthopedics	Thomas Hedman
Otolaryngology	Daniel Kempler
Pathology
Pediatrics	Cynthia Stotts
Physiology and Biophysics	Herb Meiselman
Preventive Medicine	Daniel Stramm
Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Radiation Oncology
Radiology
Rancho Los Amigos Hospital
Surgery
Urology

Also attending: Joseph Van der Meulen, Ron Kaufman, Elaine Kaptein, Henry Slucki, Bruce Gross

1.     Call to Order and Approval of Minutes:

The Meeting was called to order at 12:16 by the President, Loren Laine.

When a quorum was present,  the minutes of the August 3, 1999 meeting and the minutes of September 7, 1999 meeting were reviewed and approved by majority vote, with one dissent.

After requesting the Senior Dean for Faculty Affairs, Leslie Bernstein to mail all eligible members of the Department nomination ballots and having received information from her that she had done so, nominations were solicited from the floor for the position of Representative and Alternate for the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine. There being none, the nominations were closed and those received by mail were accepted:  Richard Lamb (tenured), Daniel Holschnieder (tenure track) and Tom Hicklin (non-tenure track). An election will be held promptly.

Joseph Van der Meulen, Vice President for Health Affairs complained that a message distributed to Faculty by the MFA was "misleading" and "in error" and likely to "upset both the Faculty and the County".  He also stated that he had been working with MFA President-elect, Harvey. Kaslow to determine how "redacted" information could be released from the Finance Committee to the Faculty, at which this matter had been discussed.  MFA Secretary, Peter Heseltine explained that the information distributed to Faculty via the MFA list server had emanated from several Chairmen of Departments, not only from the Finance Committee, after Dr. Van der Meulen had met with them. Dr. Kaslow suggested that routine and timely release of draft minutes from the Finance Committee would reduce the chance of miscommunications.

Dr. Van der Meulen explained that the CPSA included 21.95% fringe benefits, but USC's expenses were 32% and that "the Medical School has made up the difference" in past years, because the up-front payment of the total contractual amount permitted USC to use interest to absorb that difference. Now that the contract is not paid in full at the beginning of each contractual year, "the Medical School is now unable to make up the difference".  Dr. Van der Meulen said that Dennis F. Dougherty, Senior Vice President for Administration, had agreed to reduce the fringe benefit charged to the School from 32% to 26%.  Dr. Van der Meulen said he had told the Chairs of Departments that "We in the Administration would find a way to make up the difference. We have a proposal to (UPC) Administration so that it (the change in fringe) will not have an adverse effect on Departmental budgets, including faculty salaries or reduce LAC services".

Joseph Van der Meulen, Vice President for Health Affairs said that there had been no movement in the negotiations for a new CPSA. The LAC Auditor Controller's report had not been submitted and USC was waiting for LAC to respond. USC had made several calls to Dr. Thomas' office, which had not been returned.

Ron Kaufman, Chief of Staff, LAC+USC Healthcare Network, reported that the completion of medical records has "taken a turn for the worse". He reminded the Faculty that this was the subject of a citation by the JCAHO at the last licensing visit and that whatever the infrastructure problems, the matter is the responsibility of the Medical Staff.

Dr. Kaufman outlined plans to deal with Y2K problems that might affect patient care. He stated that their would likely be a "no vacations" policy issued for Christmas and New Year and that a "shadow schedule" (a duplicate on-call schedule) would be requested from each Chair to cover services that might be impacted by an increase in patient traffic, should some unforeseen problems arise in the community or at LAC+USC. No changes in the on-call pay policy would accompany this "shadow schedule".  The two County holidays (Christmas Day and New Year's Day) will be celebrated on the Fridays preceding the actual dates.

Ron Kaufman, Chief of Staff LAC+USC Healthcare Network, provided further comments on the CEO of LAC+USC, Mr. Roberto Rodriguez' plan to restructure the assessment of the quality of medical care at LAC+USC.  He reminded the Faculty to view the documents on the MFA website. He asked them to consider how the proposal would change the process of peer review. Under the proposal, the peer review of the quality of medical care would no longer be done by the Medical Staff, but by a "Hospital Committee", which would not be led by physicians. A new administrative structure would also intercede between the Medical Executive Committee and the Governing Board. It was noted by others that the proposal also makes the Chief of Staff position ex-officio. An Ad Hoc Working Group is headed by Gene Berman, President of the Attending Staff Association, with Dr. Kaufman as Secretary, and members Loren Laine (MFA President), Julian Haywood (APLACH President), Daniel Mishell (Chairman of Obstetrics & Gynecology),  Tom Berne (Vice Chair of Surgery), Gerry Vail (Chairman of Oral & Maxillary Facial Surgery), Angela Nahl (JCIR President) , Albert Yellin (APLACH Treasurer) and Sol Bernstein (HRA Medical Director) and Consultant for the JCAHO & CMA, Dan Lang. They are considering and determining a response to the proposal. Their review should be completed by November 1999 and an open faculty meeting will be held at which Mr. Rodriguez will be asked to present his proposal. Dr. Kaufman emphasized the need for all Clinical Faculty to know the facts of the Medical Staff's responsibilities and the risks/benefits of Mr. Rodriguez' proposal. 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

Leslie Bernstein, Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs was not present to discuss this matter. The recent call for MFA elections in Psychiatry demonstrate a lack of ready ability to determine who are Faculty and who have been appointed to which tenure/non-tenure track.  MFA President Loren Laine has raised this matter with both Dean Bernstein and Martin L. Levine, Vice Provost for Faculty and Minority Affairs.  The following points were raised:

• The School's governance document requires the Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs to "supervise the maintenance of faculty records"
• To function effectively as required by the governance document, The MFA needs to know who they represent
• California law requires that accurate records are kept of the beneficiaries of a not-for-profit organization
• The Faculty Handbook defines the Faculty as those who are issued contracts before the beginning of the academic year.
• Some faculty have still not been issued contracts for the current academic year.

A discussion was held  as to the best way for the MFA to determine its eligible membership.  Harvey Kaslow, MFA President-elect, offered a proposal that all Faculty would "register" by providing a redacted copy of their contract. An alternate proposal that the MFA Representatives should identify their constituents was considered. The discussion will be continued with Faculty input via the e-mail list server and a report from the MFA Executive Board will be made at the next meeting.

Tabled

Leslie Bernstein, Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Affairs

Tabled

Harvey Kaslow, MFA President-Elect

Letter from Clive Taylor, Senior Associate Dean for Academic Affairs

Originals and prior documents in PDF Format

Tabled

Faculty Academic Senators.
Letter to Academic Senate President, William Tierney

Tabled

Loren Laine, MFA President and Peter Heseltine, MFA Secretary