Peyton Place and OSF-Saint Francis Medical Center--December 2019

 

(Photo by John Carroll)

OSF-Saint Francis Medical Center was kind of like Peyton Place when I was there. There were employee dramas going on which were well known by many of the five thousand employees in Peoria.

I worked at OSF during four different decades and knew quite a few dicey stories.

Physicians, nurses, and administrators had affairs right and left. And some of these players were moved to different strategic positions within the medical center.

There was even an affair between an attending physician and a young resident physician. And the young resident physician underwent periodic job evaluations by the same attending physician. (This attending physician was verbally disciplined, but kept his job.)

There was an attending physician who had a license plate on his sports car that exhibited a very naughty word written in a foreign language. And the same physician wore an obscene necktie to work and showed a female resident physician whom he supervised. The young female physician was not impressed and did not like what the tie said. (The female resident was eventually talked out of retaliating too seriously.) Unfortunately, there was wife abuse by the same physician. And yes, this physician kept his job at OSF, too, because he knew too much to fire at the time.)

The reason I bring this up is that bad physician and nurse and administrator behavior often leads to compromised physicians and nurses and administrators. Bad behavior has a ripple effect that can cause more dysfunction down the road. Employees who have made big personal mistakes can be moved to positions in the medical center to keep them quiet.

I will not name names regarding personal bad behavior in these blog posts. I think that would only diminish the seriousness and complexity of the posts which are going to follow.

 

John A. Carroll, MD

www.haitianhearts.org