Vision for the Department of Medicine*

To build a department that will be one of the top ten in the nation by focusing on and investing in research and continuing to enhance our clinical enterprise and teaching program.

This will allow us to attract excellent students and residents and to train superb physicians and scholars, maintain a sound fiscal basis in order to support future investment, distinguish ourselves by developing and applying novel ideas, and to reach a critical mass in research that will become self-sustaining.

This vision was developed as part of our strategic plan that we completed in October 1998.

Strategy for the future*

My top priority is to get the Department finances in order while preserving the gains that the Department has made.  To do this we will need to implement hard decisions.  I have empowered the Department Finance Committee to advise me and enforce tight fiscal management in the Department.  Dr. Marshall will serve as liaison with the Dean’s office.  Dr. Marshall is particularly qualified for this role since he was former Chair of the Department from 1990-1995 and is a member of the Finance Committee of the Health Services Foundation.  He has in depth knowledge and expertise in the Department finances and the finances of the Health Services Foundation and the University.  

The steps that will be taken will include but not be limited only to the following:

  • Delaying implementation of commitments with a hiring freeze unless the recruitment is fully funded by extra-departmental resources.
  • Immediate implementation of the Faculty Remuneration plan in full, and enforced utilization of gift accounts to abolish deficits.
  • Review of each faculty member by Division Chief, who is to give an aggressive target for each faculty member in clinical, research and teaching arenas no later than July 1 each FY. 
  • Improving the coding and billing services to capture 100% of billable services.  
  • Improve the Department fiscal reporting and provide each Division a 4 page report each month consisting of the same reports, as are used by Health Services Foundation for the Clinical Departments:  Consolidated Report, Clinical Operations Report, Non-Clinical Operations Report; Fund Balance Report. 
  • Enforcing the School travel policy of no more than 45 days out of town per year (including vacation).
  • Cut operating expenses in central administration and redeploy resources to enhance billing and coding operation  and encourage Divisions to do the same
  •  Work with the Dean to decide how losing operations can be funded which are important for our educational and clinical missions, e.g. resident teaching clinic

Our current strategy, is to boost the quality and productivity of the faculty without adding to their number, and thus to achieve similar stature to that of higher ranked departments. Similarly we will have to aggressively deal with unproductive faculty and staff. It should be noted that the rankings do not take into account the size of the department – thus our quality could still be the highest without it being recognized by the appropriate NIH ranking.

As we recognize that our longer-term goal is to achieve number ten in the NIH rankings this will clearly have to be delayed until we are able to resolve our fiscal situation and restore our reserves.  To reach #10 in NIH ranking would require a doubling of research funding and this would require major expansion of our faculty and space. This will require not only departmental initiative but also a common vision with the School of Medicine and the Health System. Major investment in the department would be necessary and this is unlikely at this point in time because of the Department, School, University and National Fiscal states.

Michael O. Thorner, MB BS, DSc, FRPC
Henry B. Mulholland Professor of Medicine
Chair, Department of Internal Medicine

*Extrtacted from the Chair Five Year Review Report, July 2002