King/Drew’s Doctor Training Program OKd

An accrediting agency that had threatened to shut down a training program for young emergency physicians at the Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center has instead granted the program full approval, officials said Tuesday.

The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education unconditionally approved the program after the medical center pledged to hire eight additional emergency medicine specialists to supervise 42 resident physicians who provide the bulk of the patient care in the county hospital’s busy emergency room and trauma center.

Dr. Reed Tuckson, president of Drew University, said he was very pleased with the decision. He said teamwork by the university, hospital and county officials helped resolve the accreditors’ major concerns.

Walter Gray, director of hospitals for the Department of Health Services, said the vital program was saved partly by a personal visit that top medical center officials paid to accreditors in Chicago. Gray said the officials from the hospital emphasized the hospital’s important mission and outlined their efforts to comply with accrediting standards.

The county-operated hospital near Watts serves mostly the poor and uninsured, including a high percentage of gunshot victims and trauma patients. The emergency department is the hospital’s hub, accounting for about 78% of all patients who are admitted.

The agency last year criticized the inadequate supervision of residents in the emergency department, noting that only one senior physician was required to supervise patient care at night and on weekends. Two senior physicians typically worked the day shift. Resident physicians told accreditors they consult the supervising physician on only a couple of cases each shift. “In a facility with 65,000 visits, this is inadequate supervision,” the report said.

The hiring of additional senior doctors, who are working as independent contractors instead of Civil Service county employees, has enabled the hospital to assign two senior physicians instead of one to supervise emergency patient care from 7 a.m. to midnight most days.

The hospital also moved to replace the chairman of the emergency department, Dr. William Shoemaker, with an emergency specialist from County-USC Medical Center, Dr. H. Range Hutson, who is being paid $120,000 for a six-month period.

But Shoemaker protested his removal, sued for reinstatement and won a preliminary injunction blocking his demotion. The hospital so far has not reinstated him. Shoemaker’s attorney, Rees Lloyd, is seeking to hold medical center officials in contempt.

The accreditation council put the emergency medicine training program on probation three years ago, and in November threatened to revoke its accreditation.

Gray said seven emergency medicine specialists have been hired, including Hutson, and an eighth is being recruited. He said the new doctors will work a minimum of 48 hours a week, devoting at least 65% of their time to the supervision of patient care.

Records show that five new doctors are scheduled to work shifts in the emergency room this month. They are typically scheduled to work only two or three eight-hour shifts a week. Gray said the rest of the time they will perform administrative work or tend to other responsibilities.