UCI’s Medical Center Chief Leaving Post

UC Irvine officials announced Wednesday that Dr. Edward J. Quilligan has resigned as vice chancellor of health sciences and dean of the College of Medicine, ending a difficult, 2-year tenure as supervisor of the deficit-ridden UCI Medical Center.

Chancellor Jack W. Peltason broke the news to the medical school’s 20 department chairmen over breakfast Wednesday morning at the campus University Club.

Both Peltason and Quilligan, 63, declined to comment, but the chancellor later issued a statement praising Quilligan’s accomplishments, including construction of a medical office building on campus and creation of UCI’s Brain Imaging Center.

Two sources within the university, however, said Peltason had been unhappy recently with Quilligan’s stewardship, and described their relationship over the past 4 months as stressful.

One said Peltason had ordered Quilligan’s resignation, in part because of the dean’s insistence on maintaining his traditional role as supervisor of the UCI Medical Center, which has its own director. Peltason wanted reports on the hospital--and its $12-million deficit--to go directly to him, circumventing Quilligan, the source said. Peltason and Quilligan also held widely differing views of “the future of health sciences” at UCI, the source said, adding, “it was a typical power struggle between the medical school and the chancellor’s office.”

However, Dr. Tom Garites, a friend of Quilligan, insisted that Peltason and Quilligan shared the same frustration over the hospital’s mounting deficit and the medical college’s increasing difficulty in attracting top scientists and teachers because of budget constraints.

Several times in the last month, Quilligan had offered to resign, Garites said, until finally, on Tuesday evening, Quilligan convinced Peltason that “it was in the best interest of the medical school to have him resign” because of the budget problems.

Quilligan continued working Wednesday as dean and vice chancellor, awaiting a decision from Peltason on when his resignation would become effective, university spokeswoman Linda Granell said.

Quilligan will be giving up a $158,000 annual salary. Granell said a professor’s salary is $87,500, but Quilligan’s salary would be negotiated.

Quilligan was UCI’s third medical school dean. Dr. Stanley van den Noort, who served as the school’s second dean, was not reappointed to the post. His departure was widely attributed to his support for an on-campus hospital affiliated with the medical school.

When Quilligan was selected as dean and vice chancellor in October, 1986, he vowed to make UCI “the No. 1 medical school in the United States.”

At the time, Peltason had nothing but praise for him. “Ted Quilligan is a distinguished physician and an accomplished administrator,” he said. “I’m looking forward to working with him as a colleague.”

But several recent events have complicated Quilligan’s tenure, among them the continuing problem of the Medical Center’s deficits, aggravated because the former county hospital cares for most of Orange County’s indigent patients.

In addition, over the last 6 months, members of the medical school faculty debated a new formula on compensation. UCI policy requires that a portion of medical fees earned outside university clinics be turned over to the school.

In January a doctors’ committee rejected one proposal, and at one point some doctors discussed taking a “no confidence” vote on Quilligan, said Dr. Sergio Stone, who chaired the faculty committee. Recently, the committee has been studying a compromise that Stone described as good for both the faculty and the administration. It would direct up to 60% of a doctor’s outside income to UCI, he said.

“I thought it was a very nice compromise. . . . I’m very sorry Quilligan has resigned. I am in shock,” Stone said.

Quilligan’s many friends said they understood his job as both dean and vice chancellor was tough. “This is a job that grinds people down,” said Dr. Dennis Cunningham, chairman of the College of Medicine’s faculty senate. He said he hoped Quilligan would have more rewarding years doing research and teaching.

Meanwhile, Cunningham said, he has reconvened the search committee he chaired when Quilligan was selected. It will meet again today to help Peltason select an acting vice chancellor for health services, and will decide how to go about finding a permanent vice chancellor and new medical school dean.

Quilligan arrived at UCI from UC Davis, where he was chairman of the department of obstetrics and gynecology. He chaired the same department at UCI from 1980 to 1985 and previously served on the faculties at USC, Yale and UCLA.

An internationally recognized authority on Caesarean sections and fetal monitoring, Quilligan was president of the American Obstetrics and Gynecology Society and in 1987 was elected to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.