Fewer than one-quarter of the faculty who responded to a recent University of Arizona College of Medicine survey said they are satisfied with the college’s governance.
Slightly more than half of the medical school’s 705 salaried faculty members answered the Association of American Medical Colleges questionnaire in February and March. The survey results are to be discussed at a faculty town hall Monday afternoon.
While a vast majority of faculty say they like their job, just eight percent said the senior leadership does a good job explaining finances and 16 percent said the medical school is successful in retaining high quality faculty members.
Forty percent said they believe the medical school is accomplishing its mission. Fewer than one-third said faculty members can express their opinions about the school without fear of retribution.
The survey was conducted as the dean of the medical school’s Tucson campus, Dr. Steve Goldschmid, stepped down March 3. The Tucson campus does not yet have a permanent dean. Dr. Joe G. N. “Skip” Garcia, UA senior vice president for health sciences, is serving as interim dean.
Three faculty committees have been asked to interpret the data from the survey and make recommendations to the medical school leadership, Garcia wrote in a recent email to faculty.
“You will see that there are multiple opportunities for increasing faculty satisfaction,” he wrote. “We are excited to have accurate information on faculty perceptions of the College of Medicine, and look forward to working with you to use these data to make the college a better place to work.”
Physician faculty members of the UA College of Medicine staff the UA Medical Center, which is Southern Arizona’s only top-level trauma center.
The College of Medicine and both hospitals that are part of the UA Medical Center are moving forward on a partnership with Phoenix-based Banner Health, which expects to acquire the hospitals and form an affiliation with the medical school. The UA medical school also has a Phoenix campus.
When touting the proposed deal with Banner Health last week, officials with the UA and the UA Health Network said the transaction would be a positive for recruiting and retaining doctors.
“This will allow us to bring more and better physicians into the community and continue on the very strong base of the faculty that we have,” UA Health Network CEO Michael Waldrum said Friday.
On the positive side, UA medical school faculty who answered the survey gave high ratings to their interactions with colleagues, and to the sense of accomplishment they get from day-to-day activities. And 97 percent said they are usually willing to give more than what is expected in their job.
When asked about their overall satisfaction with the medical school, however, slightly fewer than half at the College of Medicine — 48 percent — said they were either satisfied or very satisfied.
The UA medical faculty’s satisfaction level was lower than two comparison groups — a peer group of faculty from four other medical schools (University of Florida, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of New Mexico and Michigan State University), plus a cohort group of faculty from 20 medical schools.
“Although the overall satisfaction with the College of Medicine — Tucson as a workplace is somewhat lower than peers, 79 percent of faculty are satisfied or very satisfied with their job,” Anne Wright, senior associate dean of faculty affairs at the UA College of Medicine in Tucson, said in a written statement.
“Our faculty’s satisfaction is vital to the success of our college and we’ll use the data, along with the active engagement of our faculty, in identifying strategies to inform change and to improve the workplace for all.”
Eighteen percent of the UA medical school faculty said they plan to leave the school in the next two years. Nine percent plan on leaving academic medicine, most of them junior faculty members.
The survey also asked questions of individual departments. The department of surgery was by far the unhappiest of those surveyed — 53 percent said they were either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied. Just 25 percent gave a positive answer and 22 percent were neutral.
The UA department of surgery has been without a permanent leader since September, when Dr. Rainer Gruessner was placed on leave amid an administrative dispute. Gruessner, a transplant surgeon who rebuilt the surgery program in six years, then filed legal action against his employers.
Gruessner says senior leaders retaliated against him because he questioned their competence.
In the midst of Gruessner’s ongoing legal dispute, a new UA department of surgery chief, Dr. Leigh A. Neumayer, was hired. Neumayer, a breast cancer surgeon from the University of Utah, is expected to begin at the UA on Aug. 18.
Gruessner is still trying to clear his name against an accusation that he was involved in causing changes to a database, and his case against University Physicians Healthcare (UPH), the entity that staffs the hospital with UA doctors, is pending. In March a Pima County Superior Court judge told lawyers from UPH that they must begin setting up proceedings for Gruessner to get due process.
An independent panel will make a recommendation to UPH about his employment, the judge said. No date for that hearing has been set. Gruessner says UPH is delaying, which UPH officials deny.
Under Gruessner’s direction, the hospital offered adult and pediatric kidney and liver transplants, as well as heart, lung, islet cell, intestine and pancreas transplants. The hospital has since performed significantly fewer transplants and has closed its islet cell and intestine transplant programs.
