One.
Let’s not leave 2016 without a few comments about December. At Grand Rounds Andrew Peterson, visiting professor from Duke, and Daniela Wittmann gave excellent presentations on urologic cancer survivorship. Andrew explained his remarkable survivorship/reconstructive fellowship in Durham and Daniela gave a 10-year review of our uniquely successful Brandon survivorship program.
Medical students raise money for our Galens Society annual “Tag Days” in early December. Founded in 1914, Galens supports Mott Children’s Hospital and other organizations that benefit children in Washtenaw County.
Our holiday party at Fox Hills entertained over 350 people with the expected surprise of Santa who had gifts for all the children (above). Pat Soter, her husband Jim, as well as Sandy and Bob Heskett, did the heavy lifting for this event and we thank them. Pat’s retirement leaves a major challenge filling her shoes. A faculty evening meeting (below) discussed residents progress, urology divisions, strategic planning, and John Stoffel’s stint as Acting Chair.
Now that we are 6 days into 2017, Happy New Year from Michigan Medicine’s Department of Urology.
Two.
Liberty, once attained, is taken for granted. We grieve its loss, fight for it, but are not good at maintaining it. On this day in 1941 Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered his Four Freedoms State of the Union address. Pearl Harbor would happen 11 months later. FDR came to the presidency in turbulent times and became enormously popular, serving nearly 4 terms. Some people disparaged his social policies, yet few disputed his belief in essential freedoms: freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.
The State of the Union address is prescribed by Article II Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution. George Washington gave the first to Congress in New York City on January 8, 1790, 9 months into office. The new government had recently come to power after 11 of 13 states accepted the Constitution, but North Carolina waited to ratify, pending a Bill of Rights. Washington’s address, praised North Carolina’s acceptance two months earlier. (Rhode Island became the last of the 13 original colonies to ratify, later that year on May 29.) That first State of the Union address at 1089 words (page 1 below) is shorter than any of its successors.
Washington set the tone in the opening sentences.
“Fellow Citizens of the Senate, and House of Representatives. I embrace with great satisfaction the opportunity, which now presents itself, of congratulating you on the present favourable prospects of our public affairs. The recent accession of the important State of North Carolina to the Constitution of the United States (of which official information has been received) —the rising credit and respectability of our Country — the general and increasing good will towards the Government of the Union —and the concord, peace and plenty, with which we are blessed, are circumstances, auspicious, in an eminent degree to our national prosperity.”
The conclusion was optimistic.
“The welfare of our Country is the great object to which our cares and efforts ought to be directed. And I shall derive great satisfaction from a co-operation with you, in the pleasing though arduous task of ensuring to our fellow Citizens the blessings, which they have a right to expect, from a free, efficient and equal Government.”
We anticipate President Trump’s State of the Union will seek reconciliation of political polarities without yielding on core issues that decided the election. Healthcare will be heavily weighted to the legislative agenda of Paul Ryan and operational agenda of HHS head Tom Price (UM alumnus and orthopedic surgeon).
Three.
Year 1 UMMG. The ability to practice and innovate in healthcare drew many of us to medical careers, but these freedoms have become constricted. Specialization, systemic organizational impingements, economics, and regulation drive much of the constriction. Some laws restrict conversations between patient and physician, as if healthcare providers were agents of government rather than citizens with first amendment rights (after all, free speech was first in the Bill of Rights).
Consumer discontent over healthcare delivery dominates the news, but discontent from the perspective of practitioners is equally important; dissatisfaction within healthcare professions affects delivery, efficiency, education, innovation, and pipeline of future practitioners. We can’t solve all the national and regional healthcare problems from Ann Arbor, but we can influence their solution and serve as a best-of-class example.
The structure, governance, and policies of the UM Health System have re-assembled over the past year. Our new Michigan Medicine governance is certainly less monumental than Washington’s new union in 1790 and contains key differences. Whereas the US federal system depends on a three-way balance of power, Michigan Medicine intends an integration of authority. “Silos” that evolved over the past 150 years at UM – namely the Medical School (UMMS) and its faculty, clinical departments, hospital administrative structure, and research enterprise - while related and sharing many of the same people, often worked at cross purposes to defend budgets, becoming archipelagos of cost centers.
One year ago the UMMS and its Health System merged the positions of Dean and EVPMA (Marschall Runge). Three vice dean positions were created: Clinical Vice Dean/President of UM Health System (David Spahlinger), Academic Vice Dean (Carol Bradford), and Scientific Vice Dean (TBD). A new UM Hospital Board with healthcare expertise and regental participation will oversee the entire health system and medical school.
The re-organized health system has 3 main operating units: Hospital Group I (Main & CVC), Hospital Group II (Mott & Women’s), and the UM Medical Group (UMMG, formerly the Faculty Group Practice = FGP) that manages ambulatory practices as well as regional affiliations. In the 2007 FGP, UM ambulatory activities were divided into 90 Ambulatory Care Units (ACUs) intended to function under local control by the healthcare providers to maximize lean principles. The ACUs have grown to 150 and Timothy Johnson was just named UMMG Executive Director. Tim ran the Multidisciplinary Melanoma Program, served as Division Chief of Cutaneous Surgery and Oncology, led the very successful Mohs Ambulatory Care Unit director, served as training director of the ACGME fellowship in Micrographic Surgery and Dermatologic Oncology, and is the Lewis and Lillian Becker Professor of Dermatology.
Tim’s skin cancer programs involve over 25 departments, divisions, service lines, and centers, and consistently earn superb ratings of patient satisfaction, employee engagement, and access. His programs generate significant grant funding, publications, and clinical trials.
New governance structure, expanded facilities, and growing affiliations should allow Michigan Medicine to carry out its missions no matter how the greater US healthcare system evolves. The UM has a history of innovative morphology beginning in 1869 when a faculty house became a hospital - the first occasion for a university to own and operate a hospital. While this originally happened for the purpose of teaching, the mission evolved to become a conjoined one of education, research, and state-of-the-art clinical care.
[If you want to read more of the What's New this month, please open the attachment herein or go to matulathoughts.org. The full 3752 words are too much for the fast thinking we bring to email.]
