Finding a replacement for Chief of Staff Dr. Jan Goossens to carry the medical torch at Muskoka Algonquin Health Care, which manages both the Huntsville and Bracebridge hospitals, has not been easy.
A bit of the recruitment history
The organization began its recruitment efforts last spring by establishing a recruitment committee made up of administrative staff as well as representation from the physicians and board members, which worked closely with executive search agency Four Corners.
“We began recruiting last spring in anticipation of Dr. Goossens’ term ending in the fall. He wanted to move on with other career options that he was exploring,” explained MAHC Board Chair Evelyn Brown. While there were some good candidates on the short list, they ended up taking positions in larger organizations elsewhere, which left MAHC somewhat in a lurch. That’s when they turned to plan B. “Given that he [Dr. Goossens] was getting actually kind of stressed about not being able to be relieved of his duties… we put out what we call an expression of interest for an interim position within our hospital,” explained Brown, adding that the call went out internally and all physicians with privileges at the hospitals were encouraged to apply.
One candidate applied
Ultimately, only one applicant came forward: Dr. Biagio Iannantuono. He was appointed as interim Chief of Staff by the Board for a one-year period. “We’re moving forward now to support him in this interim position while we take a bit of a rest from our external candidate search,” said Brown, adding that the search is expected to begin again in six months. “We are waiting just to refresh the market and then we’ll go back out,” added Natalie Bubela, CEO for MAHC.
But news of Iannantuono’s appointment has been somewhat controversial. Dr. Iannantuono, a long time surgeon in the community, was reprimanded by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario in 2009 for professional misconduct. His licence was revoked for a month and he was fined $3,650.
According to the agreed statement of facts, presented to the Discipline Committee of the College in a hearing which took place in Toronto on December 8, 2009, “Ms. X was employed as a nurse in Dr. Iannantuono’s office from 2006 to 2008. In early 2008, Dr. Iannantuono performed a medical procedure on Ms. X. In mid-2008, Dr. Iannantuono spoke to Ms. X about her scrotal examinations and offered to assist her in learning proper examination techniques by doing a scrotal examination on him. Ms. X rejected the idea and was clearly uncomfortable with it. Dr. Iannantuono told Ms. X that no one needed to know about the incident. Previous to this incident, Ms. Y, another nurse employed by Dr. Iannantuono prior to Ms. X, had performed a practice scrotal examination on Dr. Iannantuono, ” according to the College’s records.
The board stands by its decision
On that subject, while Brown called the incident a serious breach, she talked about the merits of rehabilitation and a fresh start and noted that the incident had taken place almost 10 years ago. She also said that following Dr. Iannantuono’s reprimand by the College, there were no further orders made such as monitoring, further accreditation or professional upgrades required.
“Dr. Iannantuono himself certainly was remorseful and totally misguided and along with the one-month suspension the college indicated that their decision met the goals of the protection of the public and patients and maintaining public confidence in the medical association,” said Brown. She also said that each year physicians are required to renew their accreditation in order to have privileges in the hospital. “And when they do that, they are peer-reviewed and if there is anyone among them that they feel is incompetent or lacking in moral judgement or in any way detrimental, that comes out and they then may not have privilege in this hospital. So if we review the last eight, nine years, Dr. Iannantuono has gone through that each and every year with absolutely no comment, no resistance or no negativeness around his practice as a surgeon or as a fellow doctor among his colleagues who have privilege.”
But here’s a physician who knew that we needed to have help in an interim way. That Dr. Goossens wanted to move on and has given us almost a year extension to his contract to allow us to search. So knowing full well that this would again be brought up in the press, and now we have social media and everything else that goes along with our new world of communication, that he was willing to take that risk in order to help us because there had been absolutely no blemish on his record for almost ten year, so knowing that, the board approved his appointment.Evelyn Brown, acknowledging the board knew that there would probably be negative feedback on its decision
Why only one candidate?
Asked why there is such little interest in the position, Brown noted that a physician is required to dedicate three days out of his or her practice to work in an administrative capacity, which often means they have to make a financial sacrifice. “So they are going to have to give up what could be a lucrative practice on one side of the ledger to now give three days a week to a fixed income.” Bubela also added that given the financial circumstances facing MAHC and the board’s decision just over a year ago to move forward with one hospital site in the future, “You put all that together and the challenges around that may not have made this position as attractive as we would like and not every physician is interested in administration.”
What are the duties of the chief of staff?
The chief of staff is a member of MAHC’s administration and reports directly to the board along with the CEO. His or her duties include chairing MAHC’s Medical Advisory Committee and providing leadership to the medical staff to ensure quality care for all patients in accordance with the polices established by the board. The chief of staff is also responsible for MAHC’s physician human resources plan as well as supporting continuing education for the hospitals’ medical staff. He or she is also responsible for ensuring that medical staff adhere to the bylaws of the organization and lead, supervise and champion quality care and safety among the medical staff, according to Brown.
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