Note: this letter was published in the September 3, 2020 edition of the Toledo Blade.
Proposed plans by the University of Toledo Medical Center to transfer personnel and services from the Eleanor N. Dana Cancer Center to ProMedica is further evidence of bad and suspect managerial decisions designed to further cannibalize Toledo’s treasured academic medical center.
The stated reason for this recent attempt to gut UTMC of yet more of its advanced clinical and educational capabilities is the potential risk of not meeting accreditation requirements. This is a specious argument. The UTMC Department of Radiation Oncology and its graduate medical physics programs and its residency program in radiation therapy carry full accreditation through September, 2021, by the Commission on Accreditation of Medical Physics Education Programs.
Any changes to accreditation requisites, such as loss or change in faculty and staff does not result in a slam dunk loss of accreditation. As with virtually all accreditation programs falling under the auspices of the parent Council for Higher Education Accreditation, there are administrative and appeal mechanisms in place to ensure continuation of accreditation during times of change.
Rather than another knee-jerk response of crying out to ProMedica for help — help which certainly will fill ProMedica’s coffers while further destabilizing the fragile finances of our medical center — UTMC management and directors should vigorously pursue other options. Chief among them, it would seem, should be an aggressive recruitment drive to fill the three vacated radiation oncology physician positions.
There is time and there are alternatives to successfully address the accreditation issue, including the American College of Radiology, for example. It would be a disgraceful loss to the city of Toledo, its residents, its patients, and the local economy to, as state Sen. Teresa Fedor states, “dismantle a nationally renowned residency program to the detriment of UTMC.”
How much more of this management insanity must we tolerate?
JIM BAUN
South Toledo