Contemplating King/Drew Without School

Los Angeles County should prepare contingency plans for running the Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center without the troubled medical school with which it is affiliated, county supervisors said Tuesday.

The order was intended to prod reform efforts at the private medical school, which has lost accreditation for its surgery and radiology training programs.

“I want to keep the pressure on,” said Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who suggested that USC or UCLA might be persuaded -- or, perhaps, coerced -- to take over teaching programs at King/Drew.

Officials from Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, which has trained doctors at the county-run hospital since it opened in 1972, said the supervisors’ action overlooked aggressive efforts at reform. In recent days, they said, the school has begun to revamp its board of trustees and has called in national experts to help turn around its teaching programs.

“There are a lot of concrete things that are occurring,” said Dr. Harry Douglas, interim president at Drew. “There is a sense of urgency on all of our parts.”

The affiliation between the hospital and university has been called into question in recent months, as a national accrediting board has withdrawn accreditation of two doctor training programs and the hospital has come under scrutiny for a series of patient deaths under questionable circumstances.

Neither USC nor UCLA has indicated interest in taking over training programs at King/Drew, but Yaroslavsky said county officials could use their political clout to demand that they do so if necessary. He and other supervisors said that their first choice would be for Drew to continue running the training programs, but that the county should be ready to abandon the university if it fails to improve radically.

Supervisor Gloria Molina said the supervisors should acknowledge that they, and not just the university, bear responsibility for failures at King/Drew.

“I don’t have any problem with holding people’s feet to the fire; that’s a fair thing to be doing,” she said. “But I think it’s a two-way street, and I think we have to understand and respect that this didn’t come about exclusively by the failings of Drew.... The failings are also on our side of the street.”

Molina also called for the supervisors to hold what would certainly be a contentious public hearing in the community that depends on King/Drew. The hospital, located in Willowbrook, south of Watts, serves some of the county’s poorest residents in South Los Angeles and adjoining communities.

“There are still people who believe that it is the intention of this board to close down Martin Luther King,” Molina said. “I think we need to go out there and dissuade the community that that is not the case here, that we’re trying to shore it up.”

Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, whose district includes King/Drew, questioned the need for such a meeting. She said she had met repeatedly with community groups and been subjected to “castigating” over the county’s handling of the hospital.