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UCI Execs’ Families Got Jobs at Med Center

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Times Staff Writer

Three children of top executives in UC Irvine’s medical programs have received jobs with the hospital and medical school in recent years, records and interviews show.

The son and daughter of medical school dean Dr. Thomas C. Cesario, who also are doctors, and the daughter of the recently resigned chief executive of the Orange hospital, Dr. Ralph Cygan, work for UCI or have worked there. In addition, the hospital has purchased artwork from a gallery owned by the wife of its chief medical officer.

The people who hired the children were subordinates of Cesario and Cygan. Cesario said he was not involved in the decisions to hire his children.

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“What I have done in all those cases is I have required myself to step back and let departments and individuals decide what they want to do,” the dean said. “It’s their responsibility.”

Cygan, who resigned last week, did not return phone calls.

“Where there is a pattern of relationships between relatives of senior management and the organization, you have to ask yourself whether senior management is tone deaf to the concerns of conflicts of interest,” said Kirk O. Hanson, a professor and executive director of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University.

Because all workers ultimately report to the chief executive officer, Hanson said, many institutions prohibit relatives of the top boss from working in the same place. It’s best “simply not to have the spouse or children of the CEO anywhere in the organization,” he said.

Nepotism has become an issue recently in the University of California system. In November, the UC’s second-ranking executive, provost M.R.C. Greenwood, resigned amid an inquiry into the hiring of her son for a $45,000-a-year internship at UC Merced and her business partner to a post in the UC system.

UCI spokesmen said Tuesday the hirings of Cesario’s children were approved by the office of the campus executive vice chancellor, which UC policy requires. The hiring of Cygan’s daughter did not require high-level approval because it was not an academic position, they said.

UCI spokesman James Cohen said in an e-mail that his office “had found nothing improper in these hirings. All indications we have received are that proper procedures were followed for the posting and eventual appointment of the positions.”

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UCI has been roiled by a string of controversies since November, when The Times reported that 32 patients died awaiting livers in 2004 and 2005, even as doctors turned down scores of viable livers.

Other problems have surfaced, including poor performance in the bone marrow and kidney transplant programs. In addition, the medical school is investigating whether the son of a donor to the radiology department received preferential treatment when he gained a position in the residency program. And the hospital’s top two cardiologists are drawing criticism from colleagues for not holding state medical licenses or American board certifications.

These are the latest medical controversies to hit UCI since 1995, when it was reported that fertility doctors stole eggs and embryos from patients and implanted them in other women.

David Cesario, 36, the dean’s son, was hired by UCI’s cardiology division in October 2004 after attending medical school at UC San Diego and finishing a doctorate at UCLA. He left the medical center last June and returned to UCLA as a staff physician. UCI paid him $165,521.95 in the fiscal year ended June 2005, according to pay records.

The younger Cesario helped get his eventual boss hired at UCI before he had a job there.

Thomas Cesario said his son brought him the resume of Jagat Narula. He gave it to the search committee that hired Narula as cardiology division chief in November 2003.

Eleven months later, Narula hired David Cesario.

When Narula was hired, UCI already had a physician with the same electro-cardiology specialty as David Cesario. That doctor, Michael Brodsky, said Narula pressured him to quit as soon as Narula arrived. He said he believed the reason was to make room to bring in the dean’s son. Brodsky worked at UCI for more than 20 years and served as the division’s acting chief during the search for a new leader. He now practices in Hawaii.

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‘If I’m there, we didn’t need his son,” Brodsky said. “There were people there that were trying to make life miserable for me so the dean could have the rationale to bring his son down, because we need someone in this capacity.”

Narula did not return a call seeking comment.

Thomas Cesario denied Brodsky was forced out to make way for his son and said he played no role in the hiring of either Narula or his son. David Cesario did not return calls seeking comment.

Kristen M. Kelly, 38, Cesario’s daughter, went to medical school at UCLA and began her dermatology residency at UCI in July 1994. Her father had been named acting dean of the medical school four months earlier. Before then, he was chairman of the department of medicine.

When Kelly was appointed an assistant clinical professor in 1997, the person who hired her, Gerald Weinstein, reported directly to her father, UCI spokesman Tom Vasich said. Weinstein, who is no longer department chairman, did not return a telephone call Tuesday seeking comment.

Kelly became director of the dermatology residency program last September, supervising nine people.

She has been paid about $100,000 in each of the last three fiscal years through 2005, UC records show. Neither Kelly nor Dr. Christopher B. Zachary, chairman of the dermatology department, returned calls seeking comment.

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Cygan’s daughter, Anne, 26, was hired in April 2004 as a Spanish interpreter. She was later promoted to work in patient relations. She was paid just less than $16,000 in the fiscal year ending June 2005. Anne Cygan did not return calls seeking comment.

Her father was hired as hospital CEO in September 2000.

In addition, the hospital purchased photographs that hang throughout the hospital from the art gallery of Susan Spiritus, wife of Dr. Eugene Spiritus, the hospital’s chief medical officer.

Vasich said Louise Beckerman, a facilities planner at the medical center, asked the Susan Spiritus Gallery to submit a proposal in 2002 for its artwork. The hospital has purchased art from the gallery four times since then, Vasich said. He said he could not provide a record of how much the hospital has paid.

Eugene Spiritus declined to comment. Vasich said the doctor was not involved in the transactions.

Beckerman, however, said Tuesday that Eugene Spiritus was among several people who recommended that she consider buying art from his wife’s gallery.

“I certainly didn’t see anything improper with it or I wouldn’t have done it,” Beckerman said.

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Vasich said the gallery’s art appeared in many other hospitals, including the Mayo Clinic, UCLA and the Stanford University medical center.

The Susan Spiritus Gallery, based in Newport Beach, has specialized in photographic art for nearly 30 years. Susan Spiritus said she did not know how many photographs she had sold to UCI or how much she was paid.

She said her proposal went through a competitive bid process and that she never discussed the deal with her husband until after it was completed.

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