Conversations with George--Dec 20, 2019

 

OSF-Children’s Hospital of Illinois (Photo by John Carroll)

Dr. George Hevesy became Director of the OSF-ED on August 1, 2001. He replaced Dr. Rick Miller who was being pushed out for various reasons. Two other attending physicians “ran” against George and we attending physicians all voted over the phone. Sue Wozniak, CFO of OSF-SFMC, took the vote over the phone and George was made Director of the Emergency Department at OSF. And this meant business in the ER would continue as usual.

As mentioned earlier in this blog, I sent an email to Keith Steffen, Administrator of OSF-SFMC, on September 27, 2001, detailing my concerns regarding bed capacity at OSF and the long wait times for sick patients in the ER to be admitted to the hospital. The next day George put me on “probation” and told me that I would no longer see patients in the main ER starting November 1. He was banishing me to Prompt Care. 

On October 5, I got a chance to meet with George in his office. However, he was 15 minutes late after having a meeting with Advanced Medical Transport’s (AMT) CEO Andrew Rand. (George was also the Project Medical Director in Peoria which meant that he controlled the Emergency Medical System (EMS) for Region II in the State of Illinois. More on George and AMT later.) 

In our meeting, George stated that he agreed with the content of my email to Keith Steffen. He also said that the Emergency Department lacked a leader for the last one and one-half years (Rick Miller) and that he understood my frustration. But he stated that I had gone around normal communication channels. Even though I copied George and all of the other attendings in the Department, the main recipient of the email was OSF Administrator Keith Steffen. The reason I addressed the email this way was that George was compromised and lacked the capacity (similar to Rick Miller) to advocate effectively for our ER patients. And I also believed that OSF had a systemic hospital-wide problem that needed Administration involved.  

During this meeting, George told me that all I needed to do to get back into the main Emergency Room was to see the Wellness Committee at OSF. George told me that I was “burned out”. His original letter to me after the email, of course, had not mentioned this. 

My whole future suddenly flashed in front of my eyes when George said this. I could see what was going to happen. George was going to make me grovel to keep my job. I told George he was being punitive towards me and slapping me the messenger. He had put me on probation for six months, was banning me to Prompt Care shifts, and was telling me that I had to go to the OSF Wellness Committee to keep my job. (At a staff meeting earlier in the summer, George had characterized all of the attending physicians as “burned out” because of our dysfunctional work environment. When I reminded George of this and asked him if the entire Department needed to go to the Wellness Committee, he replied: “of course not.”)  

I told George right then that I would not be seeing the Wellness Committee. Having sick patients in the ER who I could not get admitted in a timely fashion and then writing an email regarding this problem did not constitute “burn out”.  

As the month of October proceeded, I continued to work the main ER and Prompt Care. In fact, I was working more shifts than any other attending in the Department. This fact was not lost on the other attending physicians who questioned George and his disciplinary logic when it came to me. Why would I be working more shifts in both the main Emergency Room and Prompt Care than anyone if I were indeed “burned out”. 

George came to his senses and realized his actions made no sense and so in mid-October he stopped me from working the main ER and moved me to Prompt Care. (The real issue was that George did not want to have to change the work schedule because the other attendings would be quite upset with him. And I wasn’t burned out and everyone knew it–including George.) So I started 10 hour Prompt Care shifts in mid-October and continued to work more hours than any other attending physician in the Department— until I was fired in mid-December. (On November 11, when I met with George again, I asked him twice to give me examples that showed I was burned out. He shook his head and gave no examples whatsoever.)

————-

So during October and November 2001, I continued to work for OSF in the Prompt Care departments at OSF, the new Center for Health on the north side of Peoria, and in Morton, Illinois. And I continued to take care of Haitian Hearts kids who were in the hospital for heart surgery. I was kind of ashamed that I had been disciplined for my email, but I pushed forward. 

I was also meeting with Keith Steffen in his office which will be the subject of the next post. And the reason I mention this now is that Keith was so inappropriate in his office in 2001, that I was writing everything down on a legal pad as he spoke. OSF even asked OSF-SFMC attorney Doug Marshall to sit in on our conversations to monitor Keith.   

What most people did not know, including my ED physician colleagues downstairs, were the conversations that I and others were having with Keith Steffen upstairs. Steffen was saying to me “When this comes out about you, this won’t be good.” He was telling others the same and that “John Carroll has done bad things” and that “John Carroll is a bad person”. He told my brother Tom “There is a side of John that you don’t know”. And when I would ask Steffen what he was talking about, he would smile, but not tell me. 

Keith Steffen was playing dirty and spreading seeds of doubt around the Peoria community about me.

Steffen spoke to people in the hospital, to his church members who had kept Haitian kids in their homes, and to various community leaders about me.  A number of my physician partners told me they would go to the Wellness Committee with me so I could retain my job. My partners did not want to see me fired. But they were not aware of what Steffen was saying about me in his office and in our community outside the medical center. I was trapped by Steffen and the witch hunt was going full force.

As mentioned above, in spite of all of this, I continued to work my shifts and take care of Haitian Hearts patients in the hospital. Steffen told me he would fire me if I had not seen the Wellness Committee by December 11, 2001. Interestingly, I flew to New Orleans on the 11th with OSF-Children’s Hospital of Illinois (CHOI) CEO Paul Kramer to give speeches and raise money for Children’s Hospital. As the plane took off from the Peoria airport, I looked at my watch and it was 11:10 AM. I looked at Paul who was seated next to me and said, “I just got fired…” Paul didn’t say much.

The next day I gave a speech to the National Business Aviation Association and told 1,000 private jet owners about the good work being done in Peoria by Children’s Hospital for Haitian kids with bad hearts. August Busch III followed me and was the keynote speaker.

When I got back in Peoria, Keith sent for me. I went in to his office and asked him if he fired me while I was in New Orleans. He said he had not fired me after all because I was “trying to raise money for Children’s Hospital” with my presentation in New Orleans regarding Haitian Hearts and Children’s Hospital of Illinois.

However, one week later, Steffen called me while I was seeing patients in Prompt Care, and fired me.

---

Next: Conversations with Keith

 

John A. Carroll, MD

www.haitianhearts.org