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.