On November 5, 2006, Newsday published an article entitled ‘Blame at the top of Stony Brook’ which cited a report by the State Department of Health that condemns the entire administrative hierarchy of SBUMC for the recent problems in medical accountability and quality of care. ‘

According to Newsday, the management problems of SBUMC lead right up to SBU President Shirley Strum Kenny. The article, written by Ridgely Ochs, a Newsday staff writer, also cites the departing of several key SBUMC administrators and researchers as a sign of an internal disaster in the management of East Campus.

In response to Newsday‘s criticism, various SBU administrators have vigorously denied the validity of the information provided in Newdsay. SBU cites that the departure of Bruce Schroffel, Amir Rubin, Dennis Proul, and Richard Mann should not be considered lateral moves, but rather, decisions made by the administrators themselves for the betterment of their own careers. Furthermore, SBU disclosed a document to the Statesman highlighting 36 individuals who have served in the hospital administration in some form for 10 years or more.

For now, many questions remain to be answered. If only three individuals Schroffel, Rubin, and Proul were accounted for in ‘non-lateral’ career moves, what happened to the other individuals cited by Ochs who left SBU? The departure of Jane Franz, Dr. Norman Edelman, and Alan Schecter along with the recent opting of Brookhaven Memorial Hospital Medical Center to coordinate its cardiac services with St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn rather than the SBUMC is still cause for concern. And like Lennarz, do other doctors and researchers at SBU feel they have been downgraded to second class?

The Statesman will be following up on this issue in the upcoming weeks to see if Newsday‘s criticisms can be substantiated or not.