Hey all. I rarely ask for personal help, but this is an issue that my family and I are all struggling with right now, and I’d like to hear what a community of - no offense - total strangers has to say about it. Here goes.
My father is a radiologist for a local branch of an internationally respected hospital system. He took this job after leaving 2 other positions because they pretty much sucked, and it looked wonderful - a good name, what seemed to be a good department, and the chance to live in a rural area. Great. So, about 4 months in, as expected, the original radiologist leaves. My dad begins pushing for a new staff member, and is blown off by the system. It ends up that he doesn’t get a partner until June of this year - and it’s someone who’s not board-certified to practice radiology in our home state. In this time, he figures that he has read 17,000 case studies in 6 months. The typical radiologist reads 15,000 in 12 months. But then, it’s not a typical case of simple overloading.
The new guy spends most of his time on his computer in the department, and is missing some crucial abnormalities on basic types of studies (x-rays, CAT scans). The administration refuses to admit that there is a problem. The administration is also submitting my father to peer review, but not the new guy. They claim that he’s an “unhappy worker,” and the technologists don’t appreciate his “negative attitude.” He has set up meeting times and places to work with administrators to acknowledge and brainstorm about the problem, but they shoot him down every single time - “What problem??” I truthfully don’t know the half of it, but this is the basic skeleton of the matter.
So what do you guys think? I’d normally be a little careful about posting this, but I simply don’t care anymore. It’s so bad that my positive attitude from 4 days of winter RA training was vaporized by talking to my dad tonight for 5 minutes on the phone. I live 8 hours from my family, and we’re just starting to revamp our relationship after several really tough years - and it’s horrible to have to deal with this long-distance. Any help/advice/good national lawyers’ names are heartily welcomed.
Thanks…
–Quad
Sorry - I just realized that my timeframe may be a little confusing… my dad took the job in June of 1999, and didn’t get a new partner after the other’s departure until June 2000.
I can’t really give you any advice…but this sounds so similar to some of the bullshit my SO (also a radiologist) is dealing with! What state is your dad working in?
You’re nice for being caring about your dad.
I’m glad the OP isn’t about what I thought it was from reading the title!
All physicians should submit to peer review. I wouldn’t worry so much about whether the new guy is board-certified or not, as I would worry about your father’s workload. High workloads cause stress, and irrational behavior. Your father may be being seen as a troublemaker by the administration, and that won’t help him.
Unfortunately, hospitals are the worst political places to be an executive or department head. I was a department head at a hospital for 5 years, and survived some big shake-ups. Your father has one huge advantage – radiology is one of the only, and most, profitable parts of a hospital. If he isn’t there to do his job, the hospital has to scramble, big time.
He should demand that his co-worker also submit to peer review, and institute a work ‘slowdown’ if it doesn’t happen. Also, he should be complaining to the right people, and not complaining to the wrong people. It’s tempting to vent your problems to people who seem sympathetic, but not everyone is truly sympathetic – some might just be fishing for information, then distributing rumors and innuendo.
He won’t have a problem getting a new job, if it comes to that, but he is going to run into the same politics, and co-workers with different standards, wherever he goes.
I don’t know what the market is for radiologists, but if I was in your father’s position, I’d get out before my reputation is damaged.
When a partner where I work started coming up with unreasonable demands for me which I couldn’t meet, I told my boss all about it and made it very clear that I have a reputation to maintain and I would walk if I felt it was being threatened.
Mind you, I have a receptive boss (he had a talk with the partner and the problem has been solved), and I would not (I think) have difficulty finding another job, though it would not likely be with such a great company.
Danalan, thanks for your comments. He is instituting a slowdown, and it’s working in that the other partner is having to actually gasp do some work. Dad’s giving stuff in writing to the administrators, and logging all the “feedback” that he’s getting from them - it’s very difficult to figure out who exactly to complain to, because of the complex administrative nature of this hospital system. It’s kind of like Office Space. He had no idea that these guys were so biased, either, and they’re unfortunately the least of all evils.
St. Attila, thank you for your post as well. As Danalan said and I discussed above, the bosses here are NOT receptive 
They’ve turned down requests for a round-table discussion, which I really don’t get.
I guess another question would be: for those posters who have friends/family/people they know in the field of radiology, how common is this kind of politics and runaround? As I told someone earlier, it’s not like it’s a new thing - this has now happened in 3 different states, and 3 completely different types of hospital settings.