UVA Med Faculty Have Been Seeking Redress Since 2021
A group of University of Virginia medical-school faculty members aired their allegations against the University’s medical leadership only after two-and-a-half years of trying fruitlessly to work within the system, according to a new letter distributed by the 128 faculty members.
In a letter addressed to the Board of Visitors Thursday, the anonymous group added details to complaints contained in a September 5 letter calling for the Board to replace Health System CEO Craig Kent and School of Medicine Dean Melina Kibbe.
The latest missive, published on the Parrhesiastes Substack account, responded to a September 7 communication by UVA President Jim Ryan to the medical school faculty backing Kent and Kibbe. “Even though it is difficult to investigate generalized and anonymous claims of wrongdoing, without specific details or names to follow up with,” Ryan wrote, “we will do our best to investigate.”
Writing to “dispel the notion there is no evidence to support the serious allegations,” the dissidents provided a “partial” timeline of meetings and communications between faculty and UVA senior leaders dating back to 2021.
The distribution of the letter coincided with the UVA Board of Visitors session Thursday on Health System and Medical School matters. The Board took no action relating to the letter. It did meet in an extended closed session, but it is not known if the Parrhesiastes allegations were discussed.
The meetings and communications cited by the medical school faculty included:
Fall 2021: A United Physicians Group board letter to, and meeting with, Ryan
2002 and 2003: Letters to the Clinical Staff Executive Committee
March 2003: Jim Ryan’s exit interview regarding retaliation suffered by an “outgoing clinical faculty leader”
Fall 2023: Multiple open letters to Kent and Kibbe
January 2024: A meeting of School of Medicine faculty senate representatives with Provost Ian Baucom and Maite Brandt-Pearce, vice provost for faculty affairs.
January 2024: School of Medicine Faculty resolution on the “One Team | United Access and School of Medicine Culture,” initiative (the pertinence of this resolution is not explained)
January through April 2024: Seven meetings of School of Medicine faculty representatives with Kent and Kibbe or separately with Brandt-Pearce
May 2024: Multiple formal reports filed by at least three faculty who were willing to name themselves with John Kosky in Human Resources, resulting in hours of interviews
May 2024: A faculty senate meeting with the School of Medicine dean of faculty affairs
June 2024: A small group meeting with Baucom and Brandt-Pearce to discuss retaliation and toxic culture
August 2014: A small group meeting with Ryan to discuss retaliation and toxic culture
The dissident faculty went quasi-public in June when an unidentified author began publishing cryptic posts on the Parrhesiastes Substack account in June. The faculty members delivered their Letter of No Confidence in Kent and Kibbe on September 5 (see details here).
The letter had less credibility than it might have had for two reasons.
First, the allegations were general in nature, identifying broad themes but offering no specifics. Second, the 128 signatories refused to identify themselves, saying that they feared retaliation. Ryan referred to both deficiencies in credibility in his responses.
The signatories did offer to reveal their names to select members of the Board of Visitors, including the two physicians Stephen Long and David Okonkwo. But Ryan was not impressed. “Only a small, hand-picked number of board members (four-of-nineteen) were invited to see proof of who actually signed it,” he said. “I was not invited to see the signatures.”
Bacon’s Bottom Line
It’s not clear that the latest letter will do anything to alter the perception of vagueness. The letter provides dates of meetings and communications but only cursory descriptions of what was addressed in them. Perhaps the signatories intend to imply that Ryan knows perfectly well what the allegations are after so many meetings, even as he pans the group for vagueness. But if that surmise is correct, not many readers are likely to draw that conclusion on their own.
UVA’s response has been frustrating as well. Ryan does not persuade anyone of his sincerity when he says in one breath, “we will do our best to investigate,” while vigorously defending Kent and Kibbe and criticizing their accusers in the next before gathering all the facts.
As usual, Board of Visitors proceedings lacked transparency.
The Health System sessions, which take place at the Boar’s Head Inn, are not livestreamed, unlike the proceedings for the Academic Division and Wise Division at the Rotunda. It’s too expensive to set up the recording apparatus in a second location, I was told. While recording Board proceedings are a “best practice” enunciated by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, I was informed, it is not mandatory.
Not that it would make any difference. The Board seemingly spends as much time in closed session as open session these days. The Health System Board book listed several reasons for meeting in closed session Thursday. None of them came close to describing the controversy with the med school faculty.
Several Board members are friendly with The Jefferson Council, but they tell me nothing. They are forbidden from discussing closed-session business — it’s like they are bound by omerta. Not only does the public not know what was said about the allegations, we don’t know if anything was said at all.
James A. Bacon is the founder of Bacon’s Rebellion and a contributing editor with The Jefferson Council.
Originally published in Bacon’s Rebellion
