Steve Eblin Named CEO of Randolph Hospital . . . Just So We're Clear On Where Dr. Johnson Stands

Just this morning, someone asked me if I had heard anything new about "the search" for the new CEO of Randolph Hospital (in the wake of Bob Morrison's departure).  And I told them that, while I had not heard anything, I had no doubt whatsoever that the "search" was a ruse, and that Steven E. Eblin, Randolph's longtime VP of Corporate Planning & Development, and President of Randolph Medical Associates . . . the man who recruited me home to Asheboro . . . then broke every promise he ever made to me . . . and then fired me for saving a critically-ill newborn baby's life . . . would get the job.

Now, what happened to me happened back in the heady, high-flying, non-profiteering days of Bill & Hillary's village . . . and on Bob Morrison's watch as Randolph's CEO.  There can be no argument/doubt that the buck stopped at Morrison's desk.  And I've hammered him hard on this blog.

But make no mistake, the malevolent architect of what my hometown hospital did to me was Steven E. Eblin.

And today, my former boss got his reward for being a "world-class" (one of his favorite marketing words) corporate jackass (much like Blogsboro's leading faux-journalist. Edward Cone-of-the-Cones got his for turning a deliberately deaf ear to my story).  Today, it was announced that Steven Eblin has been named CEO of Randolph Hospital, effective March 1.

Be assured dear readers, that while there may have been 140 applicants for the job, there was NO "search".  That's flat out laughable.

This was a fixed game.  The gang-of-yes-men on Randolph Hospital's morally-bankrupt and criminally-clueless Board-of-Directors (the "search" committee included Mike Miller - the man whose financial "genius" brought down First National Bank .  . . and Robert Dough - longtime partner to Mick Irwin, the wannabe neonatologist I "rescued" from his own arrogance and clinical ineptitude on that fateful night fourteen years ago) never intended to give anyone else but Eblin the job . . . EVEN with a Titanic-sized briefcase of ugly online baggage nailed to his backside.

And of course, this is the same mill-town Board of Directors that has stood by winking and nodding . . . and smirking at "lesser" beings . . . while the over-hyped "team" of Morrison and Eblin bullied & professionally-terrorized local doctors, monopolized local resources to their own ends, manipulated and undermined independent practices/institutions, turned a blind eye to the plight of Randolph County's mentally-ill (later attempting to blame someone else for their lack of vision), and made a mockery of "non-profit" care for Asheboro's poor.

It's all about corporate planning and development, baby.

These two "world-class" jerks stand as shining examples of what hospitals should NOT DO to doctors and nurses and local competitors in the name of "independence" and self-preservation.  And they've made this hospital one of the laughing-stocks of the state.

But you won't read that in the Courier Tribune's fawning article.

You WILL read that Bob & Steve built a cancer center Asheboro didn't really need (sorry Buzzy, your family's money would have been much better spent on something else).  Cancer was "cool" you see (the expensive consultants told them so) and a money machine that would shore up the incentives and bonuses.

Crazy people (as my good pal, Buzz Armfield tells me, I should embrace the "crazy" and display it in my living room like a proper Steel Magnolia) and poor folk aren't.

It's some record.  And from a business standpoint . . . indeed from just about ANY standpoint . . . THIS DECISION IS INSANE.

For if Randolph Hospital had truly wanted to show the world that it was ready for a fresh start and real change, far from being the leading candidate for Bob Morrison's chair, Eblin would/should have swept out with Bob's trash.

Of course, if medical or corporate ethics meant anything in Asheboro, both of them would have been fired back in 2003 for unethical/amoral/illegal conduct unbecoming the corporate officers of a North Carolina "non-profit" hospital.

That might have saved the hospital some money that could have then been spent on patient care.

But this is Asheboro, a land where a well-named LOSER, whose greed and stupidity decimated a once rock-solid local bank, can, with a wink and a nod, become a university president.

Predictably, the useless/bought-and-paid-for lap-dogs at the Courier Tribune are going to drool and slobber over Eblin's assumption of the throne.  But equally predictably, this doctor will not.

So allow me, on the occasion of this glorious announcement, to re-state the FACT that Steven E. Eblin is a LIAR.  He did it under Oath - in a Court proceeding . . . to get out of A MESS HE MADE on the cheap . . . and despite what Garland Yates might "believe", in North Carolina that makes Steve guilty of PERJURY.  It's a felony.  With NO STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS.

Indeed, "oily" is the adjective I've heard used most often to describe Mr. Eblin in the "wrong" local circles that do not included the inbred/elite mill-town likes of Sam Cranford, Mac Pugh and Sam Rankin.

Lest anyone begrudge me my opinion about what passes for stewardship of an institution supported by taxpayer dollars (the FACT that he's a LIAR . . . and I have the proof in black and white . . . is the reason Mr. Eblin/his gang-of-mill-town-goons won't be suing me - again - for expressing it), I'll remind the Housecalls' reader that fourteen years ago, it was MUCH MORE IMPORTANT for Mr. Eblin to cover up medical malfeasance (malfeasance he and his team of doe-eyed sycophants had actually helped orchestrate with false marketing) than it was to do right by the homegrown-Pediatrician-who-did right-by-a-newborn-whose-life-was-in-danger and play by the rules . . .  rules that the rest of us (well, the rest of us who do not aspire to be "right people" in Asheboro) live by and rely upon . . . rules that EVERY OVERSIGHT AGENCY IN THIS STATE/COUNTRY say are the STANDARD OF CARE everywhere.

Everywhere, apparently, except Asheboro, North Carolina.

If there are any Mommies and Daddies in Asheboro out there reading this . . . thinking about putting your trust in Randolph Hospital . . . and your child's life in their hands . . . just know that if Dr. Mary Johnson had done what Randolph Hospital's brand-new CEO wanted me to do that night . . . if I had abided by what his idiot-Practice-Director PUT IN WRITING as an EXPECTATION upon which my continued employment DEPENDED all because "right person", Cheryl Freeman, didn't get what she wanted ) . . . I would have hung up on the terrified charge nurse and rolled over/gone back to sleep.

I would have not given a second thought to the boatload of medical ugly going down in Randolph Hospital's nursery.

I would not have cared if that desperately-sick newborn baby girl lived or died.

And no matter if that child had lived or died, I would have kept my mouth shut the next day.  No complaint to hospital peer review . . . or the N.C. Medical Board . . . or (much later) to then-USDHHS Secretary Donna Shalala . . . would have ever been filed.  I would have been a good little doctor - very grateful to be going-along-to-get-along, and standing meekly along side the deaf, dumb and blind likes of Jim Kinlaw and Robert Dough.

And I'd be a "right person" in Asheboro now.  Going to all the "right" parties.  Getting my picture taken for "Thrive Magazine".  The darling of the big fish in the small fetid pond.

Trouble is, I'd also be the sorry excuse for a human being that Steven Eblin is.

No heart.  No soul.

Too bad for us "ordinary" folk trying to practice good medicine - or just get decent medical care, that the oversight agencies that are supposed to protect us from corporate scum like Eblin (JCAHO, DHHS, the Medical Board, the State Bar, the IRS, the American Board of Pediatrics) NEVER ENFORCE their own rules.

It's all smoke and mirrors.  Dogs and ponies.

Care you most certainly cannot trust.

Just to review (for those new to this blog - or the geuninely ignorant - or just terminally stupid in our local blogosphere), my still white-hot-burning "beef" remains that, as a newly-minted Pediatrician, I came HOME, and for almost three years, GAVE EVERYTHING I HAD to Randolph Hospital . . . completing a public service obligation to "serve the underserved" . . . providing 24-7 Pediatric & Neonatal Critical Care back-up call to anyone who asked for it . . . doing child-abuse exams/testifying in Court (for the peanuts that the state threw) . . . building a Pediatric practice from nothing (only to see it all  just given to someone else) . . . cleaning up other physician's messes.

That translated to ZERO personal life.  But it was okay, because I was working towards a brighter future - and my own practice - once my obligation to the government was met. 

But what did this home-grown doctor (as a "young professional" the gurus over at Economic Development say they covet so much) get for her dedication, hard work and service to the good ole hometown?

Why a knife in the back from Mr. Eblin after I blew the whistle on bad care.  Everything I had worked for turned to ashes under a cloud of rumor and innuendo, slander and libel.  Years spent living like a pauper in hotels and other people's houses . . . black-balled locally . . . working far from home as I fought off merciless legal intimidation (in what amounted to a  personal vendetta funded by the public's dime).  Opportunities to have my own family and children lost in the time it took to fight back.

And then, when it was all supposed to be over, and my cause vindicated, the dream was finally completely destroyed by perjury and fraud.

Top it all off with the practiced, methodical indifference demonstrated by the oh-so-noble leaders, law enforcement officers and "journalists" of our community-drenched-in-small-town-values, and you've got just another day for anyone who isn't "right people" in Asheboro.

Law and order under Garland Yate's jurisdiction is a game of "Who's who".  For in "Mayberry" you can snort coke all day long . . . or beat/cheat-on your wife & children . . . or lie/cheat/steal from your neighbors . . . as long as you have a good name or a friend in the right place.  Yes indeed, in Asheboro, Garland's dream team will (notice I said "will", not "can") not even properly prosecute an out-of-town cyber-stalker who boasted of his crimes online.

Better to throw the doctor whose held up your office to ridicule under the bus . . . AGAIN.

And when it comes to what passes for jounalism in Piedmont, North Carolina, in the books of the Ed Cones and John Robinsons and Ray Criscoes and Annette Jordans of this world, this story . . . my story . . . is "not relevant" to why private practice physicians are dying on the vine.  Better to jump on the Obama train . . . which was originally the Clinton train . . . and then the Edwards train . . . and let the government turn all the white coats into subservient drones . . . subservient to the likes of Steven Eblin.

Move on along folks.  Nothing in Asheboro/Greensboro to see.  And don't  you worry, sooner of later Cone Hospital (former employer of Mick Irwin - and the institution for which my career was sacrificed) can swoop down and buy it all up.

So I'd say that  the rest of the 140 applicants for Bob Morrison's rotten seat don't know how lucky they are to steer clear of the "dying" town (I didn't say it, people, Forbes Magazine did) with a train wreck for a hospital.

And make NO MISTAKE, boys and girls, in this election year, where last night, this former-public-servant-badly-burned-in-said-service was forced to listen to yet another President of the United States give yet another lame lecture from his bully-pulpit on economic fairness and the government's ability to restore the dying American Dream (when, based on my horrific experience working for Mr. Eblin, right under a disinterested government's nose, I could write that book), I am SO NOT DONE with Randolph Hospital . . . or the state and Federal "oversight" agencies that let a good doctor swing.

This afternoon, I got all the motivation I ever needed to keep fighting what has always been A GOOD FIGHT.

Congratulations, Mr. Eblin.  I look forward to making your tenure memorable.  And I'll keep praying for a hostile take-over . . . by someone other than the Cone Healthcare System.

On that note and to that end, I'm back on blogging break.

Another Christmas Thought: Thank You For The Card

You know who you are.

And I hope you know how much it means;)

A Christmas Thought: Feed The Birds

There was a very good opinion piece on CNN this Christmas Eve morning entitiled, "When Bedford Falls Becomes Pottersville".  Over the years, I've watched my hometown slowly turn into Pottersville and I don't like it.

I have it on very good authority that "Feed the Birds", from 1964's "Mary Poppins" was Walt Disney's favorite song/sequence out of all of the Disney films.  It's also mine.

It's about charity and doing the right thing, even when charity and doing the right thing isn't easy - giving even when you don't have much yourself . . . acting for good even when it hurts.

It's not a bad message to ponder at Christmas.  Alas, it's also a message that Asheboro's "non-profit" medical sector totally did not get (leaving so many of the people it was supposed to serve behind in the mill town cold) . . . a message I intend to keep hammering home on this blog . . . and (shortly, I hope) in other venues . . . until Randolph Hospital, the people running it - and the "public servants" winking and nodding at all-that's-been-done-under-their-noses-in-charity's-name-to-pervert-charity clean up their act and are held accountable.

Merry Christmas.  Thanks to everyone who reads this blog.  And Happy New Year.

 

The Last Full Measure Of Service: What Makes A Man Or Woman "Right" Enough For The Courier Tribune?

Note to Readers:  This Post Has Been Updated.

I had planned to let my post on the disintegration of the Merce Clinic (which speaks volumes about Randolph Hospital CEO, Bob Morrison's, true legacy . . . and the abject failure of "non-profit" medicine in Asheboro) stand for a while, and return to break.  But then . . .

Lance Corporal Jacob Levy, a native of Ramseur, graduate of Eastern Randolph High School, and of Lumbee Indian descent, was shot in the head while on patrol in Afghanistan on Wednesday.  He has done prior combat tours there - and in Pakistan - and had volunteered to go back.  The Marine was stabilized in the field, and has been on life support in Germany since that time.

He serves with the son of my good friend, Buzz Armfield.  The Marine Moms and Dads have been rallying for days.  As of this writing, the news is not good.

Both Fox 8 and the N&R have had stories asking for prayer.

But Lance Corporal Levy's "hometown" newspaper has not uttered a peep - at least not online.

Where do we find these young men?  At moments like these, I often reflect upon words of Lincoln . . . words (from the Gettysburg address) that I memorized as a child and have not forgotten . . . indeed, words that I have tried to live my life (in a different kind of service) to honor:

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

May God bless and comfort the family of Lance Corporal Jacob Levy during this horrible/heart-breaking time.

Semper Fi.


Sunday Morning Update:

We now have official word that Jacob Levy passed away last night at 8:50 PM.  He was 21 and an organ donor (as his Stepfather said, "selfless to the end").

I am citing the News & Record, because as of my last online check (about an hour ago - at which point I resolved not to go back), the Courier Tribune had yet to post the story online.

As background to my earlier posting and what I’m about to say here, Jacob’s Mother had called Buzz Armfield (as noted above, also a Marine parent – whose stepson served with Jacob) from Germany on Saturday morning, with the news that further treatment for his head wound was deemed futile by Jacob’s doctors, and he would shortly be taken off life support.

We expected him to be gone by the end of the day.

Buzz, in turn, called me and asked me to put up a post about Jacob on Housecalls (I was running late for rounds yesterday, but decided to take the extra time and do it) . . . because, while we had read stories online at Fox 8 and WGHP and even the Greensboro N&R, we had not seen anything online at the Courier Tribune (Buzz lives in Jamestown and does not take the Courier, and I decided long ago to spare innocent trees an inglorious end). Buzz could not understand the omission, and wanted to scream Jacob’s sacrifice to the rafters.

“Jacob deserves better. The world should know.”, he said.

Buzz was so upset about it, that he subsequently sent a scathing e-mail to both the Courier and the President of its “parent company” (Stevens Media) in Nevada – asking why the story was not to be found on the Courier’s website.

Since she's spent so much time pretending that "Housecalls" (and I) do not exist, we were both very surprised when Courier Diva, Annette Jordan, sent Buzz an e-mail yesterday afternoon. This was her "terse" (as described by Buzz - I would use another descriptive term) response:

“The story ran in Friday’s paper on the front page. Sorry, you missed it.”

My response to Annette now, withheld until news of Jacob's death was officially announced, will be equally terse . . . for I am as disgusted as I have ever been with my "hometown" newspaper.

Dear sweet, Annette-of-the-small-town-values, Buzz “missed” it, and I “missed” it, and a half-dozen other people who do not pay for the privilege of being kept in the dark by your useless suck-up-to-the-right-people-rah-rah-protesting-too-much newspaper “missed” it, BECAUSE YOU DID NOT PUT THE STORY ONLINE.

And it’s the ONE story you’ve had all weekend that should have been easy to find and be read by every resident of Randolph County . . . online or off - no matter if they have a subscription or not.

For you see, Annette, it’s not about the money you might make drawing a few more gullible subscribers in. It’s not about who is first (Jacob should be), exclusivity, or petty oneupmanship between local competitors.

There’s just NO folksy spin that you can put on this story . . .  or any way to dress it up . . .  that justified keeping it behind a pay-wall . . . or offering it only to those who read get the hard copy to read all of your not-so-fine print. There’s just NO excuse.

And/so, Buzz Armfield, parent of a Marine, is absolutely right. Lance Corporal Jacob Levy deserved better from his hometown paper. He sacrificed his life to preserve and protect the America’s highest ideals and opportunities.

Now, Annette, just so we’re clear, this post was not designed to use Jacob’s death as a weapon in my (or anyone else’s) war with the Courier Tribune (besides, it’s been a very one-sided war for a very long time - because you-all have held all the cards and played them in all the tightly-knit "right" circles, very close to the vest).

It went up in response to a grieving man’s plea that the sacrifice of his son’s fallen comrade-in-arms . . . his last full measure of devotion . . . not be brushed-off or easily forgotten.

But, as someone who believes in those ideals as Jacob did (and did my best to live them in a-different-kind-of service-to-my-country), if I don’t know anything else, I KNOW that Jacob Levy did not die to preserve the kind of “journalism” practiced by the Courier Tribune over the last 15-20 years.

As I alluded earlier using the immortal words of a martyred President, I KNOW in my bones that this young man’s sacrifice REQUIRES much more of the Courier Tribune than you and your “team” have delivered over the last decade or so . . . ignoring stories that don’t reflect well on the “right people”( who put Asheboro on life support in the first place) . . fawning all over Mike Miller while Community One failed . . . winking and nodding while our “non-profit” hospital pulled the strings and monopolized the resources that ultimately left Bob Morrison a rich man and the poorest in our community out in the cold . . . playing citizen against citizen for money (ala the alcohol and annexation wars) . . . turning a deaf ear as good-people-done-very-wrong PLEADED for your help in speaking truth to power . . . flat out pretending that certain people and situations did not exist . . . and now apparently thinking that elitism and racism have a place in marketing your latest offerings (clearly not realizing that this kind of approach to life and business has not already factored heavily into the “death” of our town).

NOTHING IS GOING TO "THRIVE" HERE UNTIL YOU CHANGE YOUR WAYS!!!

Now, Buzz was reluctant for me to post this response to your (insert unprintables) e-mail.  He is tired and heartbroken, and wants his son's friend to now rest in peace.  So do I.

But I told my friend this morning that if I know anything about Jacob Levy - from the things Buzz has shared - and the tributes and stories I've read online (everywhere, that is, except your newspaper), I know that Jacob Levy would tell him not to be afraid . . . to stand tall and proud . . . and (most of all) not to run from a fight you believe in.

I believe in this fight.  ALL of us in and from Randolph County deserve better.

Where do we find these young men and women? We find them in places like Ramseur and Asheboro. And we find them, I think, IN SPITE OF places like Asheboro and institutions like the Courier Tribune.

You’ve danced with Asheboro’s self-appointed “stars” for a long time, Annette. But I’ve got NEWS for you, lady . . .

. . . there are Lights that will shine far brighter in our skies tonight.

And the Star known as "Phoenix" puts you/the Courier Tribune to shame.

My sincere condolences to Jacob's family.  My thanks for his service and sacrifice.

Semper Fi.

The Quality Of Merce In Asheboro, North Carolina

12/8 Note to Readers:  This post has been updated.  And I'm pulling no punches.

I'm on a blogging break . . . for reasons restated in my last post (on Bob Morrison's real legacy) . . . but some recent developments scream for commentary.

Both the Courier Tribune and the Randolph Guide have "in-depth" stories on the disintegration of Asheboro's once-noble endeavor, the Merce Clinic.

The Clinic, started in 1992, by doctors with charitable intentions donating their time to the town's most indigent, is now "at death's door" (a strange choice of words for newspaper reporters otherwise desperately poo-pooing Forbes Magazine's 2008 "diagnosis" that listed Asheboro as one of the nation's "Top-Ten Dying Towns") . . . and clinic administrators/board members are begging for money . . . from a variety of sources - including Randolph Hospital, and the Randolph County Commissioners.

The history of the clinic includes at least two major "morphs" .. . first into a state-supported Rural Health Clinic . . . and then a Federal Health Center accepting Medicare and Medicaid (with one exception, every one of those I've worked for or encountered in my 14 years on the road, was a criminally-run money pit).

What's not stated in the Courier's article is that Randolph Hospital was pulling a lot of the strings behind the scenes (and if you read between the lines in the article, still is).  Rest assured, Bob Morrison and his "team" of rabid-dogs-out-to-kill-or-eat-every-private-practice-in-sight had their fingers in that pie . . . for reason$ that $uited them.

I guess Randolph Medical Associates (RMA) . . . "non-profit" Randolph Hospital's wholly-owned controlled affiliate . . . did not pick up all the slack for the community's poor and under-served . . . as hospital executives originally promised it would when developing that practice was pitched to city and county leaders.

In other words, RMA was SUPPOSED to be Merce.  And the practice and "mission" I was recruited to was a LIE.

For you see, RMA could not be Asheboro's "premiere" white-bread practice and Randolph Hospital's own personal money machine (always Bob Morrison's goal as he and Steve Eblin monopolized every resource in town - and bullied/manipulated every doctor) . . . if it really had to take care of people with no insurance and no money.  It was better for those folks to be dumped on the Merce Clinic and the Health Department (Sorry, Dick.  You've been a patsy all along - you just didn't know it.).

It was all a sick, warped game . . . with Bob Morrison walking away with over $700,000 in salary and benefits in the 2009 fiscal year.  Shortly, he'll be walking away from his version of the Titanic - with nary a backwards glance . . . and the journalistic dolts at the Courier Tribune still covering his lying tail.

According to the Courier's article, Merce's problems result from "poor management in the past and issues with productivity, billing, collections and marketing" (I had to blink several times as I could not believe I was reading such an forthright admission of local incompetence in the oh-so-upbeat Courier Tribune).  It is also in trouble with the IRS because of $34,000 in payroll taxes that were never paid (the funds were embezzled by the company hired to handle that aspect of the business).

The County Commissioners were dumbfounded by news of the clinic's fiscal troubles, and dismayed at the request for nearly a quarter-million dollars in emergency funding (money, I can assure you, that the Randolph County taxpayer will never, ever see again).  According to the article, most of the bunch sat silently by as their comrade Stan Haywood (a local pharmacist) fired a barrage of questions at Merce (and Randolph Hospital) Board member, Mimi Cooper (you see how this all works).

The article styled the Commissioner's collective silence as "deferring to Stan's knowledge of the healthcare industry."

And I'm sorry.  That's where I draw the line.

Like Dr. Jim Kinlaw (of White Oak Family Physicians - also a Randolph Hospital Board member - and like Bob Morrison, soon to retire), I once considered Commissioner Haywood a close family friend and colleague.  My sainted Mother taught his children (as she taught Jim Kinlaw's) at Loflin School, and I had known him for years before I came back home to Asheboro to practice.  I always thought he was a good egg.

Accordingly, I'd just like to know, exactly WHERE was Stan Haywood's vast knowledge of the healthcare industry - and his voice - when Dr. Mary Johnson . . . National Health Service Corps provider . . . state and Federal loan-repayment recipient . . . was ROYALLY SCREWED OVER by Bob Morrison, Steve Eblin and the rubber-stamping mill-town fat-cats running our local "non-profit" hospital?

In her presentation to the County Commissioners, Mimi Cooper (Director of the Randolph County Health Department and another ex-colleague), not-so-subtly trashed the Merce Board-of-Directors . . . implying that because a controlling percentage of them had to be clinic clients, that they were essentially too stupid to understand the Clinic's operating problems.

Sorting through all the crap was too much for them.  They could only pray for help.

Okay, fine.  But tell me, Mimi.  When it came to the case of Dr. Mary Johnson . . . local homegrown Pediatrician . . . who served pro-bono on your Child Fatality Task Force . . . who slogged through the child abuse cases (that no one else in town would touch) for the paltry reimbursement the state offered (only to be routinely ABUSED by the Randolph County Court jesters) . . . who covered Pediatric criticial-care back-up call for EVERYBODY 24-7 . . . who was happy with a reasonable salary for her hard work (as opposed to selling her life for fat incentives) . . . who was fired for saving a dying newborn baby's life & blowing the whistle on bad care . . .  then sued for telling the truth to the governments she served (after the hospital tried to cover it all up) . . . then swindled by PERJURY, CONTEMPT and FRAUD when she dared fight back . . . what is YOUR excuse?

What is Jim Kinlaw's excuse?  And what is Stan's?

Did ANY of you really smart, ethical, knowledgeable people with your "small town values" . . . so-called "experts" in healthcare . . . ask a SINGLE question about the hundreds of thousands of state and Federal dollars poured down the drain when NOT ONE, BUT TWO Pediatricians who came to Asheboro with the intent of making it their home forever were maliciously run out of town on a rail by Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin . . . all to cover up medical badness and serve the be$t fi$cal interest$ of Randolph Medical Associates . . .

. . . as opposed to the best interests of the children of this community?

If you're not STUPID, you're GUTLESS COWARDS AND SELL-OUTS (and I'm voting for the later because YOU ALL KNEW WHAT WAS DONE TO ME WAS WRONG).  Either way, you people make me sick.

"Experts" on healthcare?  That's a real HOOT!

There's a reason Asheboro is "dying".  And I've got news for the Randolph County Economic Development Corporation, all of the consultants and upbeat cheer-leading in the world are not going to fix it.  It's a good thing John Rogers is praying for all of you, because I simply cannot bring myself do it.

With regards to your predicaments now, you could say that the quality of my mercy is strained.

12/8 Late Evening Update

I am informed that tonight Mimi Cooper & company went begging for even more money from the Asheboro City Council . . . to the tune of $40,000.

Of course, they got it.  It was more or less a done deal before Mimi even asked.  That's the way things are done in Asheboro.

The same, sad/sorry excuses for the clinic's predicament were presented to the City Council that were presented to the Randolph County Commissioners just days earlier . . . and they go something like this:  "Yes, we've made some HUGE mistakes . . . and no, we cannot seem to manage our way out of a wet paper bag . . . and yes, the majority of our board is stupid (funny how Asheboro's "non-profits" never want to identify who sits on their boards and is legally RESPONSIBLE for the mistakes) . . . but if we adopt a new business model that pumps up the volume of paying patients (i.e. Medicare and Medicaid), and craps on the doctors providers (cranking up the clinic hours and working them to death is called increasing their "productivity"), we really hope we can make it work."

The holy name of Randolph Hospital was apparently thrown around tonight with gusto . . . . with Miss Mimi presenting Bob Morrison and his management "team" as a bunch of knights riding in on white horses to show Merce how it's done . . . nevermind that the Merce Clinic would not need to exist AT ALL if our "non-profit" hospital had done what it said it was going to do with Randolph Medical Associates . . . and honored the "mission" I was recruited to back in 1994.

The TRUTH is that if Randolph Hospital's leaders had kept their promises, Merce's patients, young and old, would have long ago been absorbed by RMA . . . and not now presented (by the very people who are supposed to SERVE THEM) as scallywags who would flood the already over-worked Emergency Department.

(As an aside, please don't get me started on the ER's Eric Helsabeck.  He's another Randolph Hospital medical stalwart who thought it would be easier to go along with the Bobber and crush the Pediatrician who told him the truth he didn't want to hear - as opposed to fixing the problems she brought to his attention.  The boys would all teach "the bitch" a lesson.  How's that working out for you, Eric?)

And girls and boys, there's a REASON that the highly-coveted designation of "Federally Qualified Health Center" (FQHC), if lost by the Merce Clinic, would NEVER again be awarded to ANY entity in Randolph County.

Inasmuch as their oversight SUCKS, the Feds KNOW that the "non-profit" healthcare system in Randolph County is run by imcompetents, crooks and liars.

What goes around.  And it's coming around for Asheboro in spades.  Welcome to the vacuum, Jim (Kinlaw).

The Courier's uber-uesless, grinning, aging-hippie-with-a-pen-for-sale, Chip Womick, was at the Council meeting . . . so tomorrow morning I guess we'll get to see how this colossal cluster-screw of the city & county taxpayer is viewed through the rose-colored glasses of the Randolph County Economic Development Corporation's happy rah-rah crowd.  Trouble is, the spinning these days needs a few cycles with heavy-duty bleach.  Even then it still smells.

The sinus-wash-worthy kicker of the evening came when Mayor David Smith said tonight that City Council members are going to be engaging in online ethics training.

That's only about two decades too late, David.  You might remember, Mr. Mayor, that my family and I BEGGED THE CITY COUNCIL for help getting our *&^%$#@! hospital to act ethically back in 2004.  You could not be bothered. And it's biting you now.  Too bad.  So sad.

I guess the quality of my mercy is still strained, huh?  Can't imagine why.

The Randolph Guide On Bob Morrison's Legacy: "A Small Town Doesn't Mean Slim Pickins" (Subtitled: "I Wonder What Mary Thinks?")

More and more these days, I hear from Asheboro folk who, for one reason or another, have just discovered my blog. 

"You GO, Girl!!!", seems to be the prevailing theme (apart from disappointment that I went on an extended break just as they found me) . . . especially from world-weary contemporaries who were raised in Asheboro, but could not count themselves amongst the mill-town's well-named, well-connected or financially-padded.  Most of them left the town behind in the dust as soon as they could.

And those giving the high-fives concur that one of the biggest reasons our hometown is on life-support now has much to do with the peculiar brand of "journalism" practiced for well-over-a-decade by the Courier Tribune.

Indeed, this blog exists because the "hometown newspaper" failed to do right by a hometown girl . . . they failed to tell the truth.

Asheboro's "free press" sold its soul long ago.  David Renfro, the Courier's publisher until a year or so ago, was nothing if not a Rotarian, and (being married to Miss Bonnie over at the Economic Development Corporation) he couldn't report anything bad about the town or its VIP occupants/institutions.  The theory seems to have been that a local newspaper reporting bad news might scare new businesses away.  Any criticism was "destructive".  Better to sweep all of Mayberry's ugly under the rug.

Nobody ever really talked back to power . . . dissent was squelched.  And/so a tightly-circled small group of "right people" controlled the town.

Now it's just the "ordinary" townsfolk who are scared . . . for their town.

Here's the scenario spelled out in a little more detail:  If beloved doctors were caught driving drunk or were just flat out clinically dangerous . . . if respected lawyers (key word lawyers) were raving alcoholics and/or snorting cocaine and/or beating their wives & children (when they weren't cheating on them) . . . if hot-shot executives and local politicians and preachers were chasing skirt while professing their conservative values. . . if the local mill owners never met a Hispanic man they couldn't exploit for money (dumping the medical care and education of the families that followed on public services poorly-equipped to handle them)   . . . if local developers were allowed to run roughshod over anything and anyone in their path to profit . . . if our hospital was monopolizing public resources and chewing up/spitting out doctors under the pretense of charity . . . if the fortunes of once rock-solid banks were stupidly pissed away by lawyers-pretending-to-be-businessmen . . .  you were not going to read about it in the "upbeat" Courier until after the whole world knew it anyway - and it was too late to do anything but cry (whilst drying your tears with the pages of Forbes magazine).

But hey, cheer up people.  If Randolph County Manager, Dick Wells, has his way, pretty soon, we'll be Greensboro's new landfill.

There's been NO LIGHT and NO AIR in Asheboro for a very long time. 

And that brings me back to the retirement of Randolph Hospital CEO, Robert Morrison.  Predictably, the Courier's article on the blessed event (which I will not bother to link because it's behind a paywall) was fawning, and the Randolph Guide's initial piece was even worse . . . singing Morrison's praises and accomplishments . . . particularly as it pertained to keeping Randolph Hospital "independent" (translation: incestuously insulated) all these years. 

But the "piece-de-resistance" came when another friend called up last week, alerting me to (and lambasting) yet another article in the Guide in which Morrison's life history (seemingly filled with happy fortuitous accidents) was chronicled. 

I quote the opening line in this example of "in-depth" local journalism  (I'll link the article if and when the Guide puts it online), "For Bob Morrison, small town doesn't mean slim pickins." 

And I mean really.  When I finally got my hands on the article, it was worth a coffee sinus wash. How in God's Holy Name did reporter Larry Penkava, if he had done any research at all on Bob Morrison, write that line with a straight face?

For it is, boys and girls, the understatement of the decade . . . the $700,000/year man being living, laughing-all-the-way-to-the-bank proof of how easy it was to snow and ultimately rip-off the under-informed, and largely apathetic residents of one small town. 

Bob milked the fat backwoods cow for all it was worth.

We'll get to picking apart that article in a minute. (I do have to say, I'm disappointed that the Guide, like Asheboro Magazine, now appears to be playing the Courier's "upbeat-no-matter-what" game . . . Asheboro Magazine and the Courier going so far as to selectively distribute their products only to neighborhoods and people they deem "worthy" . . . it's elitist . . . and racist . . . of coruse, WHO CARES as long as we're thinking positively?).  But let's talk, for a minute, about why I stepped away from the legal files and emerged from my break to write it.

This post was actually born a few weeks ago, in the wake of Bob's announcement, when another friend told me about a conversation she had with ex-Hospice-of-Randolph Director, Billie Vuncannon, in a local market.  My relationship with Billie (to my great regret) has devolved over the years . . .  from the time she was a benevolent mentor to a starry-eyed-doctor-wannabe-not-quite-"right"-enough-to-get-a-job-at-the-hospital Hospice volunteer (back in the day when Hospice was still a kitchen-sized operation) . . . to the time that I loved & trusted her enough for her to be the first person (after my Mother) that I called on the day I got fired . . . to the time that I respected her enough to accept her wisdom and immediately forgive her for what-anyone-else-would-see-as-a-betrayal when she told me that Bob was going to be on her Board-of-Directors - because, "You have to keep your friends close and your enemies closer" (Morrison and his money-grubbing "team" spent years trying to get Hospice totally under Randolph's thumb - often trashing/undermining Billie in the process) . . . to the present day - where I now feel my life-long friend and compatriot got a little too friendly with our once mutual enemy for my comfort, and I no longer confide. 

But hey, that's all about life and charity in small town.  Billie had to survive.  She had a husband and children to consider, and at one point she was fighting a life-threatening illness.  She simply could not have endured what I have over the years. I do not blame her and feel no animosity.  It is what it is.

Anyway, in the store, after the announcement, Billie, chatting up my other pal (and appearing to be fishing), announced that "It's all over" . . . implying that there was nothing that could be done about Bob's evil deeds now that he is preparing to ride off into the sunset. 

"I wonder what Mary thinks?", she asked.

(Insert various friends offering sarcastic, unprintable answers.)

I'm sorry, Billie, that's just a silly question at this point, because Mary's been blogging since 2005 about what she thinks.  That, and YOU KNOW FULL WELL how she feels . . . how her heart was broken, and her dreams were crushed, and her soul cried for justice.  You KNOW how she BEGGED for help from colleagues who KNEW she'd been done wrong . .  . colleagues whose EVERY phone call and request-for-help she had answered . . . colleagues who nevertheless turned a deaf ear and a blind eye - all the while boasting about their "small town values" (in essence, bold-faced lying to the public how much they cared about clinical excellence and high standards of care).

And if you're not a perpetually-grinning-mill-town-suck-ups like the Courier's Ray Criscoe and Annette Jordan and Chip Womick . . . or faux "citizen journalists" like Edward-"I-played-the-game-well-enough-to-win-a-seat-on-the-Board-of-the-Cone-Healthcare-System"-Cone, or John-"I'm-jumping-the-N&R's-sinking-ship-before-Landmark-fires-me-too" Robinson . . . and you really want to spend a few moments in Mary's shoes, all you have to do is hit highlights/links on the Housecalls sidebar. 

Mary stopped pulling punches long ago.

(I will pause here to say . . . as I have said over on other blogs since the happy announcement . . . . that Edward Cone, "journalist", blogger, and scion-of-the-Cone-family got exactly what he wanted by doing newbie-blogger, Dr. Mary Johnson, uber-dirty when she brought him a sordid story that did not exactly reflect sunnily on the institution bearing his family name.)

Now all of this coincides with the opening of the new outpatient  Piedmont Surgical Center off Highway 42 . . . a facility across town from Randolph Hospital's main campus, owned by a coalition of local doctors & surgeons - with Randolph Hospital as a non-controlling partner. 

Happy faces were put by the hospital's brass at the opening, but it does not take a rocket scientist to understand that the building of that center is something that Bob Morrison & Randolph Hospital did NOT want to happen.  It takes business - and lots & lots of money - away from the hospital's own surgical suites - to the tune of an estimated 2,000 procedures a year. 

(Now Randolph Hospital will only get a cut of the action - like some red-neck godfather.)

But given medical trends, it was going to happen one way or the other.  For once, in a career ripe with bullying everyone around him into doing his bidding - or else, Bob Morrison did not have a choice.

You see the world is much bigger and more diverse than Bob Morrison ever wanted it to be.  And he's getting out while the getting is good.

I personally think it was a mistake for the surgical center to "partner" with Randolph - as opposed to Cone or even Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem (Baptist swooping down to Asheboro and cleaning the place up is something I've literally dreamed about).  But such partnerships are subject to certificates-of-need and turf-wars-over-county-lines, and I'm suspecting that the docs involved in the project, if they really wanted to do it, didn't have a lot of choice either. 

They were stuck with the ugly/big step-sister whose thumb they're trying to step out from under. . . in an effort to keep patients in Asheboro.

Of course, not keeping those patients in Asheboro previously is, as they say, is a matter of public relations . . . a battle that despite Bob's best efforts to paint otherwise, he has decidedly LOST.

I say this not only as a patient who has endured the ongoing consequences of not-one-but-two botched surgeries at Randolph Hospital (both requiring surgical revision - one before Bob's tenure, one during) . . . or even as a badly-burned, once-hospital-owned Pediatrician who was threatened-on-a-pile-of-unsubstantiated-allegations, then fired-for-doing-her-job-the-way-it-was-supposed-to-be-done, and then sued-for-telling-the-truth . . . but also as a home-girl who is regularly contacted by locals who want me to blog their bad experiences at Randolph (for the most part, I've resolved to let others fight their own battles and stick to the case I know inside and out) . . . as a traveling-doctor who regularly encounters less-than-enchanted colleagues who've substituted in and/or just passed through Asheboro . . . and as a daughter who still has an elderly Mother living in Asheboro (a deacon at FBC who has made the rounds of all the hospitals and nursing homes in the area) - and a daughter who worries about her Mother's care when and if she gets seriously ill.

Do I really want my Mother in the hospital whose CEO "visited" my ex-lawyer in the middle-of-the-night (a heart-attack scare while the lawsuits were raging), and silently/menacingly stood over his bed?

Wanna talk about privacy violations, Bob?

This concern was accentuated over the past month, as I watched my my old-friend-from-AHS, Buzz Armfield-of-the-Armfields-who-donated-one-million-dollars-to-the-Cancer-Center, cope with the final illness and death of his Mother.  Audrey Armfield spent about a week at Randolph prior to being transferred to a nursing home - so Buzzy got to experience the hospital first hand for the first time in a long while.  Mercifully, neither Bob nor his left-hand-man, Steve Eblin, showed up in her hospital room uninvited (as administrators are prone to do) to thank the grey-sheep of the Armfield clan for his family's largess.  Based on impressions Buzz shared during the experience (he was actually very complimentary of the nursing and ancillary staff), not a lot has changed in the nearly fourteen years since I was unceremoniously shown the door.

In short, I hear LOTS of things from the small-town trenches, and I think I'm fairly in-tune with the word-on-the-street.  As a home-girl, I always was.  But Bob and his "team" of positive-thinking sycophants did not want to hear it.

The FACT is that the perception of the community concerning the quality of healthcare care available in Asheboro is most certainly very different than what the medical community, under Bob's head-in-the-clouds leadership, thinks it is . . . or what Bob/the newspaper/the economic development corporation wants it to be. 

The doctors really are in a self-induced fog compared to many communities in which I have lived and worked since being tossed out into Asheboro's gutters by the Bob and his upbeat team.

The physicians in Asheboro have run in a closed pack for so long that they have no clue what the-ordinary-people-with-good-insurance (who continue to flock to Greensboro and W-S and Raleigh-Durham and Pinehurst for their care) really think.  Moreover, they never really wanted to know as they marched behind the hospital's administrative Pied Pipers who were all about style & appearance over substance . . . thinking oh-so-positively . . . yet somehow always managing to pander to our mill town's lowest common denominators for money.

I mean, there is something just fundamentally morally/ethically WRONG with a hospital CEO telling the general populace that bringing alcohol to town will help recruit doctors and enhance the community's quality-of-life.  It was a time for a healthcare executive to sit down and shut up . . . not post a video on You Tube giving the impression that drenching a previously-dry town in booze - and making it easier for people to get their hands on alcohol - would not have dire medical/social consequences for some in our community.

Of course, Randolph Hospital would be there to pick of the pieces of those broken lives . . . and bill Medicaid/Medicare.

(I'm thinking that maybe if Bob had not treated so many of the doctors he recruited with utter contempt . . . like pawns on his chessboard . . . he wouldn't need booze to recruit so many new ones . . . and the ones who stayed would not be driven to drink.)

When I worked at Randolph Medical Associates, I heard it EVERY DAY.  A HUGE part of my problem with regards to inpatient Pediatrics was that parents did not want to go NEAR that hospital - even if I was there 24/7 to protect their child.  Many refused to set foot in the ED.  EVERY SINGLE DAMNED DAY.  Morrison and Eblin visibly cringed whenever the subject came up.  

Meanwhile, I was supposed to quietly cover the asses of the Mick Irwins of this world - clean up their messes - AND put up with the petty back-stabbing CRAP going on in the office - and hope I did not get caught in the malpractice crossfire. 

It's warmed my heart over the years to hear that the hospital brass lost ALL credibility with a lot of people when they fired the home-girl for intervening to STOP world-class-care-that-no-one-could-trust.  The people in this county have amazingly long memories . . . memories that withstand all of April Thornton's PR pizazz and the Courier's determined blind eye. 

It's amazed even me how long they are.

If (heavy sigh) I only had a nickel for every time I've heard, "I will never set foot in that hospital", I would have never had to have sue their controlled affiliate after it turned most of the dreams I ever had to ash.

And that brings me back to the Guide's "life of Bob Morrison" story - which we shall now dissect (again, I will link the story whenever the Guide has the guts to put it online).

According to the article, Bob grew up in a small town (New Albany, Indiana).  Bob loves small towns, you see.  And well he should.  The sleepy hollow of Asheboro, snuggled on the edge of the Uwharries, with its mill-town mindset, was perfect "pickins" for the man who wanted to rule a landscape with an iron hand and no oversight from above.  Once entrenched in his lair, no one would stop him.

In the article, Bob talks a lot about his work to change the staff's perception of itself:

"We had to believe we provide excellent quality and service . . . if you expect more that's what you'll get."

Not necessarily, Bob.  Thinking your poop doesn't stink does not make for the scent of roses coming out of the bathroom stall.  Creative visualization is nice, but the thing that Bob never seemed to get is that it's about so much more than just BELIEVING what you're doing is good. 

You actually have to BE good. 

And when the services you provide are not good - for whatever reason and no matter whose toes you step on, you have to be willing to look at what you did wrong and fix it.  The messenger who delivers the bad news should be SAFE.

As a freshly-minted Pediatrician, that 's what I expected and believed when I arrived in Asheboro.  I wanted to help change a medical landscape that had allowed a locally-beloved quack to surgically mutilate my throat (and forever alter my voice/heatlh) as a five-year-old.  Bob and his "team" promised real change for the children of Asheboro and Randolph County.

But they did not deliver.

Moving on along in the article, Bob tells the story that healthcare was not his original list of things-to-do.  As Bob tells it, he was just another mill worker who got fired before Christmas (shades of John Edwards feeling our pain . . . choke, sob) during the recession in the 70's.  Manufacturing jobs were a bust (sound familiar?), so fairly desperate, he applied for a job at St. Francis Hospital in Cincinnati in public relations (something he says he knew nothing about when he applied - see how creative visualization works?).  And this is where Bob discovered that he liked "strategy" and managing healthcare in small towns - (if you're reading between the lines) particularly in small town institutions that were run autocratically (as Catholic hospitals usually are) - i.e. by a small group of people in total control of everything and everyone.

And/so he went back to school and got his (evil) MBA.

I have to pause for a moment and tell readers about my brother's recent experience in a Catholic hospital.  Tommie, an airline pilot and Father of two, fell desperately-ill after flying one night.  He called me while on a layover in Cincinnati - and could barely speak he was in so much pain.  He had recently had an outpatient surgical procedure, and from what he told me between gasps for air, I was concerned about infectious complications, and a potential surgical emergency.  His crew called an ambulance and he was taken to the closet hospital, which happened to be a Catholic hospital in Kentucky (just over a bridge/the state line).  He got a cursory (I think grossly inadequate) evaluation in the ED, and was admitted on antibiotics.  Over the course of his admission, it quickly became clear to me that my (heavily doped-up-on-morphine) brother was suffering from MRSA, he was on the wrong antibiotics, and he was getting worse/septic.  But the nurses would not call the doctors for anything and only spoke to them on rounds in the morning.  For the rest of the day, doctors were treated like unapproachable gods - the nurses would not even put me through when I called the hospital to question his medical management (pseudo-septic Tommie literally handed the phone to a nurse and said, "This is my sister.  She's a doctor.  Explain what you're not doing to her.").  Messages were given to nursing administrators who never called back.  Meanwhile Tommie was alone and getting sicker . . . his only advocates were hundreds of miles away . . and he wasn't going anywhere because of a raging snowstorm.  It took two days for the doctors to come in out of the fog and get my brother on the proper antibiotics to treat MRSA.  He was hospitalized for two weeks.  We got him out of that &^%$#@! hospital as fast as the snow thawed - and had him re-admitted to a facility in North Carolina.  He could have died.

This is the kind of working environment in which Bob Morrison cut his teeth.  And he apparently liked it.

With his (evil) MBA in hand, Bob took a job with another Catholic system (Mercy) and wound up being the boss of a small hospital in Urbana, Ohio.  But the hospital was part of a much larger conglomerate, and the trend at the time (which is actually even more of a trend now) was for multi-hospital systems to centralize their management . . . and to eliminate the local figurehead executives & Boards which were often expensive dead weight in the organization.  Bob was out of a job again.

(I actually contacted Urbana years ago, to try and elicit the details of his departure.  But that file was locked up tight.)

That's when Bob found Asheboro.  At the time, Randolph Hospital was looking for someone to replace John Ellis, their longtime uber-autocratic hospital administrator.  It was 1993.  The hospital had just finished a multi-million-dollar facilities expansion.  But it had a horrible reputation, and was next-to-broke. 

They had built it, but people still weren't coming.

Bob got a new title: President and CEO.  Shored up by a Board-of-Directors composed of farily-desperate mill-town-kings-who-asked-no-questions, he was given a free hand.  He was a captain of local industry.  He was "in".  And if he played his cards right, he would never be fired again.

Now Bob likes to brag about the creation of Randolph Medical Associates, and this article is no exception.  The hospital needed in-coming patients to survive (duh), and the intent was to create a "designer" or "premiere" practice to bring in local physicians to feed the monster.  And/so the hospital's "wholly-owned controlled affiliate" was born.  Despite what Bob would like you to believe, it was not some genius idea exclusive/unique to Morrison or Eblin, but a developing trend in hospital management - one that was able to dance all around Federal STARK (anti-kickback) laws.

The Guide's article states that Morrison hired a full-time recruiter for physicians soon after arrival.  It also regurgitates the party line that the RMA model allowed physicians to come to the community, establish their practices as employees of a benevolent parent-company, and then break-off to hang-out their own shingles.

Penkava's story conveniently leaves out the part about Randolph Hospital not even considering physicians educated & trained out of the U.S. in its initial RMA recruitment efforts.  Nope. Morrison and his team wanted white-bread-doctors . . . in order to attract the better-paying insured patients who were flocking to other counties in droves. 

Foreign-medical-grads would only come much later . . . after Morrison's "team" developed a reputation for doing doctors way-beyond dirty.

Pursuing the concept of RMA as the "premiere" practice in Asheboro (never mind the grumbling/resentful/private/established doctors in the community whose efforts to run a business and make a living were not cushioned by taxpayer dollars) Morrison and his team also didn't want to actively market the "non-profit" practice to parents and children on the East side of town.  Those patients had the health department, and we couldn't interfere with that business.  That might interfere with the Department's funding.

(It's the same part of town where Dick Wells wants to dump a landfill now.  See how things in good ole Asheboro work?)

And it was Randolph Hospital's physician recruiter who (according to several recruiters I was working with after I got fired), would later black-ball me (and Dr. Anderson) for miles around Asheboro.  But when Jim Kinlaw (a partner at White Oak Family Practice and perpetual RH Board member) asked Morrison if this was true, and Morrison denied it, that denial alone made Mary (and Laurie Anderson and all those pesky physician recruiters trying to help us) a liar.

That's what passes for "oversight" in a small town.  But I'm skipping ahead of myself.

Yours truly was the first doctor recruited under the new practice model.  I was doing Locum Tenens work in New Orleans at the time . . . Jim Kinlaw knew I was freshly-minted and "out-there" . . . and contact was made through my Mother. 

Well-versed in Asheboro's awful reputation - particularly in Pediatrics (the town had a recent history of chewing up and spitting out Brenners-educated Pediatricians - who are decidedly NOT "a dime a dozen"), I was intrigued by the opportunity, yet initially somewhat reluctant to take the job (and warned by others against it).  But Morrison and Eblin offered a sweet deal at a practice site that offered full state & Federal loan repayment within two years.  I would be the "valued employee" (billed as no stress/no administrative hassle) of a "non-profit" . . . fulfilling my personal desire to serve all comers and make a real difference in my hometown.

To coin one of Bob's phrases, "It was home.  My family and my friends were there.  It was where I planned to stay."

I arrived in 1994, with much fanfare and an ad campaign in the Courier Tribune.  Mama still has the ads in a photobook.  She and Pops were so proud.

And for almost three years, providing back-up call for critical care Pediatrics 24-7 (actually very good training for my current job in the middle of far-Eastern nowhere) . . .  much of that time coping with with THE MOST INCOMPETENT PRACTICE MANAGEMENT THAT I HAVE, TO THIS DAY, EVER ENCOUNTERED . . . insisting upon the excellence that Bob swears he cared so much about . . . doing everything I knew how to do to wade through the crap - to make it all work - and to make things in Asheboro better for kids, I labored under the lie that there was light at the end of the tunnel, and that someday, somehow, when my loans were paid off, the practice I had built from nothing would be mine to transition - if that's what I wanted.

But the thing is, I really wanted to remain an employee.  I saw the writing-on-the-wall before many other private docs did, and I did not want the hassles of running a practice.  I expected to fairly reimbursed for my services, but exotic monster compensation plans based on "incentives' and "production" (what Bob wanted to impose after he hooked the first doctors in . . . to the extent of firing everybody at RMA all at once so he/Steve Eblin could "renegotiate" their contracts . . . another genius move that totally back-fired) did not interest me.  And my personal life simply was not for sale.

I had an excellent local reputation (for all of Bob's later attempts to destroy it), and great rapport with the Pediatric institutions/sub-specialists to which I referred patients when Randolph's services were not enough .. . . one of them my alma mater (Bowman Gray/Baptist Hospital/Brenners) . . . another the hospital where I was born (Cone).

For all that Bob says that he's proud of Randolph Hospital being "independent", back in late 1997, his practice Director was telling the Pediatricians that we needed to be sending our referrals preferentially to Cone (not always my first choice).  He causally told us that it was in our best interests to foster the "cooperative relationship" between the institutions (rumors persist to this day that there is some kind of "secret ownership" of Randolph by Cone). 

The Director was immediately informed (by Dr. Anderson and Dr. Johnson) that Randolph Hospital attempting to direct our Pediatric referrals as a condition of employment was illegal (those pesky STARK laws) and he needed to back WAY off.  We would send children where we - and their parents - thought they needed to go.

Of course, Cone Hospital owned the practice that employed the family practitioner I later rescued (at the nurses' request) that fateful night in 1998 . . . a doctor whose skills in Neonatology Bob's team grossly exaggerated and falsely advertised to an unsuspecting public.

On that particular night, the doctor, way-out-of-his-element, did not know what he was doing, and refused to ask for help that was available.  His arrogance and ignorance could have killed a newborn baby girl.  Quality and excellence did not factor into the equation AT ALL. 

And on that night, I did what I was supposed to do.

The next morning, pretty much at the end of my rope, I reported the case to Peer Review.

And if you ask ANYONE on any hospital or Medical Board, or the gurus at JCAHO (Joint Commission for Accreditation of Hosptial Organizations) or the bureaucrats at DHHS (Department of Health & Human Services), or even the hoity-toids in the towers at the American Board of Pediatrics now . . . I PLAYED BY THE RULES LONG BEFORE ANY OF THEM BOTHERED TO CARVE THE RULES IN STONE.

IN SHORT, WHAT I DID AT RANDOLPH HOSPITAL IN 1998 IS POLICY AND PROCEDURE IN 2011 IN ANY HOSPITAL IN THIS COUNTRY.

After I did what I was supposed to do, the FACT is that Bob Morrison, as the leader of a "non-profit" hospital . . . the man everyone else looked to for moral/ethical guidance . . . DID NOT. 

What happened that night had to be covered up.  It didn't look good.  Why, it was EMBARRASSING!  Dr. Johnson had to be silenced.

And/so, within two weeks of the incident . . . without ANYONE from the hospital's "Quality Assurance" or peer review Committees speaking to me about what happened . . . without practice management saying, "Hey Mary, we probably took things a little too far when we threatened you IN WRITING without just cause", I was fired.

I was unceremoniously given five days to wrap up my work and get out of RMA's office - yet at the same time held exclusively to my contract for the rest of a six-month "notice" . . . my silence ensured by the practice doling out a paycheck every two weeks (instead of paying me what I was contractually owed in a lump sum and setting me free).

I was given no input into a letter that was immediately sent out to my patients - a letter that intially gave many parents the impression I had abandoned their children.  And despite what the Randolph Hospital Board-of-Directors were telling angry parents in carefully-crafted letters (about my freedom to set up shop in the community), the FACTS were that I unable to protest to anyone (including and especially the Boards of Directors) other than Bob/his minions without being FIRED FOR CAUSE . . . I was unable to see "RMA" patients anywhere (including the hospital), or work on transitioning my practice without being FIRED FOR CAUSE . . . I was unable to work anywhere else without permission without being FIRED FOR CAUSE . . . and (denied a patient list) I was unable to tell parents/patients the real reason I was fired without being FIRED FOR CAUSE.

Just to make sure I couldn't practice at the hospital (because my hospital privileges were mine to keep or resign), Bob's practice Director immediately cancelled my malpractice insurance - even though I was still employed.  It was a move that would later backfire in a bad way.

In doing these things, Bob Morrison and his lawyers kept me in a tight little windowless box for six months.  Meanwhile, my patients (at least the ones who didn't flock back to White Oak or Greensboro) could be shifted to the rolls of other RMA doctors.  The fact IS that employment laws in North Carolina (a "right-to-work" state) equate doctors to janitors.  And again, anything I did to set up my own show during the notice period - or move on to work for a local competitor (or move on, period) - or in any way incite parent's outrage about what had really happened - would have been in direct contradiction to Randolph Medical Associate's "best interests" - "justification" to be FIRED FOR CAUSE.

Like everybody else except the over-paid, Teflon-coated demon-triplets (Morrison, Eblin, Bridges) who did this to me, I am human.  I had a mortgage and bills to pay.  And, in terms of "moving on", getting FIRED FOR CAUSE just doesn't look good on your CV ("curriculum vitae" . . . doctor-speak for "resume").

So tell me again, Larry Penkava, after your extensive research on the tall tale Bob Morrison was spoon-feeding you, that the goal of Randolph Medical Associates was to mentor and foster new physicians in the hope they would stay in the community.

Tell me again that Bob Morrison cared one bit about "quality of care".

It's not just a lie, it's a damned lie.

I was the first doctor hired at RMA, and the first one who should have been given the unencumbered (according to my National Health Service Corps agreement) opportunity to fly solo (or in may case, set up shop with Dr. Laurie Anderson - who also got loan repayment and also left Asheboro behind in the dust because she could not stand what was going on at RMA).

The FACT is that Bob wanted to keep the patient base I had built (of the three Pediatricians, the one most composed of the "white bread" patients he craved) for himself.  Likewise, the boys over at Jim Kinlaw's White Oak Family Practice liked getting my patients back on their roles - and didn't want Mary Johnson practicing Pediatrics anywhere but at RMA.

No one wanted the popular homegirl as a competitor in their market.

So much for the "mission" of the Federal program that repaid my student loans to recruit and RETAIN.

In the article, Bob boasts about his recipe for success:

"If I'm in business and (a competitor) is getting results that are equal or better, I would try to copy or beat it."

The thing is, Bob, never had to compete on an even playing field.  His modus operandi was to crush or absorb competitors in the community - using the bully pulpit of his non-profit.  His "industry" was shored up with taxpayer support - there was always a net.  In stark contrast, ordinary physicians, trying to make a living in "his" town were out of luck unless they played Bob's game.  And don't even get me started on the unnecessary duplication of services . . . by ALL accounts one of the biggest factors in increasing healthcare costs in this country.

In other words, every tiny town doesn't need a "world-class" Cancer Center.

(OBTW, the Cancer Center became a gleam in Bob's eye when he realized how generous the citizens of Asheboro were when it came to supporting organizations like Hospice and events like Relay-for-Life.  It wasn't altruism.  He saw dollar signs.)

Bob's "team" acted with pure malice in what they did to me and the way they did it . . . destroying any chance I had to transition into my own practice in Asheboro . . . or find employment with another practice in the surrounding area . . . or (in the alternative) land a Pediatric sub-specialty fellowship (the "neutral references" Bob's minions offered were worse-than-useless).

Try explaining getting fired for saving a baby's life in a fellowship interview.  Watch all the leads for local jobs suddenly go deader-than-dead (remember, this is way back before I discovered blogging).

And then talk to me about "getting over it" and "moving on".

Things were bad enough as I took to the road to pay my mortgage (bouncing all over the place - getting lousy reimbursement and staying in roach-motels that Bob & Peggy Morrison wouldn't be caught dead in).  But when I sued Bob's "controlled affiliate" . . . in an effort to get back what was mine . . . that's when the knives really came out.  My hospital privileges (a protected property right) were immediately rescended - based on a RESIGNATION I HAD WITHDRAWN - without notifying me that the action was being considered by the Medical Executive Committee.

I mean, these guys . . . who put on a great show of being benevolent community stalwarts acted like a bunch of Fascists!

And let me just say, there's really nothing like being SLAPP-sued for telling the government-you-served the TRUTH about what you endured at the hands of a corporate sadist . . . with his buddy-running-your-local-hometown-newspaper splashing the headline that you are a liar front-page-above-the-fold . . . for all of your friends and family to read.

Mom and Dad saved that clipping too.  They were horrified (I mean, can you try to put yourself in their shoes?).  But they were even prouder of their girl - who they knew was not going to take it lying down.

And that leads us to the reason I am in the blogosphere . . . the FACT that Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin repeatedly lied under Oath during the discovery phase of their own despicable "libel" lawsuit (a lawsuit they eventually ran from - their tucked tails neatly covered by the Courier Tribune) . . . withholding far-from-confidential fiscal information that was absolutely VITAL to determining the true damages I had suffered as a physician wrongfully crushed under their thumbs.

Lying under Oath about matters relevant to a damages claim is PERJURY.  Perjury is a FELONY.  It has no statute-of-limitations.  And I reported the CRIME to Garland Yates back in 2003.

But since that time, the Randolph County DA has refused to even meet with me - or refer the case to the N.C. and/or U.S. Attorney Generals for a proper investigation.  The small-town wagons have been tightly circled around Bob Morrison since day one. 

There's a REASON Randolph Hospital put a clause in its employment contracts requiring any legal action over disputes to be filed in Randolph County.

"There are things we can do to make our hospital better.  It's that attitude, willingness to take responsibility, is what I'm most proud of."

Yeah, right Bob.  Do you EVER plan to TAKE responsibility . . . to BE accountable . . . for the LIES you swore to God in a Court proceeding . .  . before you ride off into the sunset (if I have to guess, in order to pursue your next career opportunity as a blood-sucking healthcare consultant)?

And there you have it boys and girls, just one physician's take on the story behind the "hundreds of accomplishments" that Bob Morrison is now peddling as his legacy.  I can assure you there are more stories.  From more doctors. And nurses.

But I was pretty much the only one to really roll up my sleeves and openly fight back.  And just because the oily SOB is retiring doesn't mean I'm going away.

With regards to Randolph Hospital's future, I don't see it as remaining independent for very much longer.  The town is in economic freefall, demographics have changed considerably in the last 15 years, the paying-to-nonpaying patient ratios are eroding into scary numbers, and money is very tight (you can tell by looking at the infrastructure of things other than the Cancer Center).  Looking in my crystal ball, I see a bigger hospital - most likely Cone or Baptist - coming down and cleaning house . . .

. . . which is pretty much what Bob was running from when he came here.

You can be for damned sure that no one coming in is going to approve of paying Bob Morrison $500,000-700,000/year.

As for how I "feel" (Billie) about Bob riding off into the sunset while the newspapers slobber and the right people fawn, here goes . . .

I'm disgusted.  Very angry.  And more determined than ever to be vindicated . . . to see transparency and accountability become a reality in Asheboro.

And here's today's reality-sans-spin:  For all of the building-of-fancy-buildings and endless upbeat spinning, not a whole lot about Randolph's reputation has really improved since I first arrived on the scene in 1998 to help change it.

The things that happened on Bob Morrison's watch (new ED and ambulatory/outpatient services) were going to happen under anybody's competent leadership - indeed, these things had to happen for Randolph to survive.

Based on my experience with administrators and executives over almost 40 locums assignments on the road, just about anyone else would have been more benevolent doing it than our positive-thinking Bob.

Sadly, it doesn't really matter how hard the ordinary minions there work, the rot at the top is still bringing them down.  And I don't think that there's much to be done about that unless someone in the medical community finally grows a set, throws off the mill-town chains, and demands real change . . . and (most importantly) makes a BIG SHOW of it.

If anyone wants a SHOW, I've got one ready-made.

With the evidence (of bad faith & perjury) I presented to the Garland Yates back in 2003, as non-profit officers who acted amorally, unethically and ILLEGALLY,  Bob Morrison AND Steven Eblin could have been FIRED FOR CAUSE on the spot . .  that is, IF their Board of Directors actually had possessed any of those small-town values they boast about . . . and IF the medical staff had ever stopped being AFRAID of their shadows long enough to organize against a tyrant.

Indeed, these two corporate vampires could STILL be fired-for-cause now . . . it's certainly reason enough not to hand the CEO job to Steve Eblin (who was the true architect behind what was done to me).

But I labor under no illusion that anyone in this town is capable of doing the right thing unless someone is holding a gun to their head (we are speaking figuratively here, lest Bob & company try to float the notion that not-so-crazy Mary is capable of physical violence).

It's been a true conspiracy of dunces.

Many people on the outside looking in, have commented to me that it is SIMPLY UNFRICKINGBELIEVABLE that Randolph Hospital's Board of Directors has continued to ALLOW Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin to pretend that they did not lie and cheat and steal . . . to just ignore the accusations made on this blog . . . to let them stand and waft all over the Internet for years without doing something - anything to "fix it" and "make peace with Mary".

Because suing her kind of back-fired in a BIG way.  To coin a phrase, every hit on this blog is one more person . . . who will tell a few more people . . . who will all tell a few more people . . . and so on and so on.

Any way you look at it, they're BUSTED.

Moving on along, Morrison said in the article that he "looked for a time when it would be a clean place to start for my replacement.  There is none."

Again, in terms of what I hope to do soon in a Courtroom, that's another colossal understatement.  There is NOTHING "clean" about this situation.  Several in my circle of friend have wondered aloud what potential CEO in his right mind would take the job with this PR nightmare hanging over his head?

I operate in the light, so I'll share.  What happened to me could have been stopped with one phone call from the Feds when it started.  The crux of the case I hope to make is this:  Federal healthcare reform and tort-reform in North Carolina have come and gone.  My ordeal spans the tenures of Clinton (disbarred in Arkansas for perjury), Hunt, Sleazely (convicted felon), Edwards (if-there-is-a-God-soon-to-be-convicted-felon), Bush and Obama.  The only politco who ever did anything substantive to help in nearly fourteen years was Howard Coble, and it simply wasn't enough.  And in that time, despite begging every regulatory body under-the-sun for help, NOTHING has been done to plug the black-holes of medical and legal oversight I fell through.  As a medical whistle-blower, my civil and property rights were trampled, and the state & Federal governments simply could not be bothered (the logic seems to be that it was neither rape nor murder, so it's just not an important enough case to pursue).

While a good doctor was criminally-battered by the liars and thieves-posing-as-captains-of-industry-at-a-non-profit-hospital (all because she did not hang up the phone on a terrified nurse and go back to sleep - because she stepped up to keep a baby girl from dying in front of her eyes), the pencil-pushing, dive-under-their-desks bureaucrats at the US & NC Departments of Health and Human Services might as well have been the bigshots at Penn State when Sandusky was raping boys in the shower (insert hypocritical, self-righteous rant featured by well-named hyper-local blogger-turned-healthcare-system-board member).  Likewise, there must not be a lot of oxygen high in the ivory towers occupied by the Medical Board or American Board of Pediatrics.  And JCAHO wouldn't recognize a sentinel event if on jumped up and bit one of their useless reviewers in the tuckus.

Indeed, Obama just threw more money after bad at the National Health Services Corps.  Hope and change was a joke.

Since the state and Federal regulatory agencies - and medical oversight bodies - that were supposed to protect me (and by extension, my patients) never lifted so much as a finger to do so (despite all the blather about "transparency" and accountability and high standards of care . . . despite the position and policy statements they now present to the public as being God's holy word on the subject), I am working on crafting something that holds their feet to the fire.

And call me crazy (a lot of people have because they cannot otherwise make a coherent counter-argument), but I don't really think these regulatory agencies and oversight bodies are going to want to answer for Bob Morrison's crimes . . . or fight a case that showcases their methodical indifference and gross negligence . . . especially in an election year.

There is legal precedent in North Carolina.  It's a matter of melding with the right lawyer (someone recently told me that they are "a dime a dozen" these days . . . and I burst out laughing), so I am doing the rounds now.  I'm a patient woman.  Not in a hurry.  And even if the legal arena ultimately doesn't work out, there is more than one way to skin a cat.

The Internet is forever.  Cold dishes and all that.

But sooner or later, I think Bob Morrison will have some splainin to do.

Jim Kinlaw, someone I once held on a fairly high pedestal and now hold in utter contempt, once self-righteously pontificated to me that, "We do not live or practice in a vacuum" . . . implying that I should have done more to go along to get along with the powers-that-be at Randolph Hospital.  I should have looked the other way.  I should have kept quiet.

As Asheboro circles the drain, I could say the very same thing to him now.  We don't live in a vacuum, Jim.  There is right and there is wrong.  You and your man were DEAD WRONG.  This isn't going away.  I am not going away.

So, DOCTOR, as the air in you vaccum gets thinner and thinner, if you don't want this to ultimately blow up in your face, MAYBE, just MAYBE it's time you and the rest of that Board-of-Directors told Bob Morrison and Steve Eblin, "Wait one minute fellas.  Bob doesn't walk out the door just yet, and Steve doesn't get his chair.  YOU MADE THIS MESS.  BEFORE YOU LEAVE, YOU CLEAN IT UP!"

And just so you know, DOCTOR, every time I even try to entertain the idea of giving up and letting go . . . of cosigning what was done to me in Asheboro to the ashes . . . I immediately flash back to a memory.  It's one of my Pops, Jim.  You knew him.  Once up a time, like my Mother, like me, he was YOUR PATIENT.  And one day, in the spring of 2004 (the year before he died), my Father stood across Fayetteville street, and silently kept watch over his daughter, the Pediatrician.  In desperation, trying to get someone/anyone in your mill-town-brimming-with-small-town-values to CARE about the nasty things that were done to her, she had strapped a sign to her back and was protesting all by herself in front of your hospital's old "front door". 

The Courier Tribune (typically) didn't think it was news.  Neither did the N&R. 

That image of my Dad is BURNED into my soul, Jimbo.  Mostly because I KNOW many of the old-guard doctors and Board members of Randolph Hospital thought it was hysterical - just like SUING ME for "libel" was funny (well, at least until your bullies-in-suits had to eat it). 

I also think of my sainted Mother - who taught your kids - and Ray Criscoe's - at Loflin school.  Mama DID RIGHT by you - and by Ray - and your children. 

But you-all let Bob Morrison and Steven Eblin CRAP all over her daughter.  Now you're letting Bob walk away.

Giving up is just NOT an option.

So there you have it, Billie  That's what Mary thinks.  That's how Mary feels.  That's what she's working on.  It's so NOT over.

Bob Morrison can retire.  He can run.  But the hospital he leaves behind (after sucking it dry) cannot hide.