No Dogs to Bark - Failure to Connect the Events Foreshadowing the Fall of the Upstate President

In Silver Blaze, Sherlock Holmes noted the important clue of the watchdog that did not bark.  In health care, nowadays watchdogs are absent, so who is expected to bark?  So, when cases of failed leadership of health care organizations appear, in retrospect they often appear to have been foreshadowed by various events which caused no reaction..  Last week we posted about the president of the State University of New York (SUNY) - Upstate Medical University who resigned his job after revelations that he was receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in income from outside organizations which he had not properly disclosed, and which could have constituted conflicts of interest.  Only days later, on November 20, 2013, James T Mulder, the Syracuse Post-Standard journalist who had done much of the relevant reporting, published an article summarizing previous events that in retrospect should have suggested that there were serious ongoing problems within SUNY - Upstate leadership.  Claims that the University Fired Physician Whistle-blowers - the Case of Dr StewartAccording to the summary article,Critics of [SUNYH - Upstate Medical University President Dr David R] Smith ... [said]  he ruled with an iron first and did not tolerate opposing views.'It became clear once he knew who dissenters were, things would happen,' said Dr. James Holsapple, a former Upstate neurosurgeon who now practices and teaches in Boston, Mass.'Dissidents would not be tolerated.'H...
Source: Health Care Renewal - Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Tags: intimidation SUNY SUNY - Upstate Medical University whistle-blowers Source Type: blogs