Internal Memo Calls Report That Led to Firings ‘Gross’ Misstatement

Three top personnel administrators at UC Irvine Medical Center blasted a management report that led to the termination of Executive Director Mary Piccione and her chief deputy as “a gross mischaracterization of relevant facts.”

“Overall, the report repeatedly presents unsubstantiated allegations as facts and draws conclusions that are not based on the facts as presented,” said the trio in a June 23 confidential memorandum to Bruce Baker, the medical center’s senior associate executive director.

The eight-page memorandum, obtained Friday by The Times, was signed by Human Resources Director Patricia D. Thatcher, Employee and Labor Relations Director Christine W. Taylor and Employment Services Manager Rita Pitt.

Their statements come in response to a management audit by two University of San Diego law professors, publicly released June 14, that accused Piccione and her deputy, Herb Spiwak, of retaliating against three whistle-blowers in the UCI fertility scandal and engaging in “management by fear.”

A key whistle-blower in the fertility crisis, Debra Krahel, said Friday that the trio’s memo is “suspect” and “self-serving” given that the management audit found the three personnel administrators were involved in carrying out Piccione’s retaliation against Krahel.

The management audit apparently figured prominently in Chancellor Laurel L. Wilkening’s decision to fire Piccione and Spiwak last week. In termination letters to the two, she accused them of lax oversight of the Center for Reproductive Health and an “unacceptable management style.”

In a letter sent Friday to Wilkening, an attorney for Piccione and Spiwak demanded administrative review of the firings. The lawyer, C. Bennett Jackson, who included a copy of the human resources administrators’ memorandum with his letter, called the management audit “inaccurate, incomplete and lacking in substance.”

Charles Wiggins and Allen Snyder, who conducted the management audit, could not be reached for comment late Friday. The university had no immediate response to the memo. Spokeswoman Fran Tardiff would only say, “Everyone in the university has a right to offer their opinion.”

The memo is most critical of what the three personnel administrators call the management audit’s “apparently unchallenged acceptance” of statements by Krahel, the key whistle-blower. Krahel, who had been senior associate director of ambulatory care at UCI, received a $495,000 settlement from the university, in part to settle her claims of retaliation for coming forward with allegations of wrongdoing at the Center for Reproductive Health.

Piccione placed Krahel on leave in July, 1994, a week after Krahel complained to university auditors that Piccione had ordered her to keep her “loose lips” closed about the clinic.

Thatcher, Taylor and Pitt allege that the issue of retaliation was not clear-cut, because “deficiencies” in Krahel’s overall job performance were under review before and during investigations into claims of wrongdoing at the fertility clinic.

“The Wiggins report gave minimum attention to this significant fact” and mistakenly concluded that Piccione’s actions against Krahel--which included transferring her to another position before placing her on leave--was retaliation, the three personnel administrators wrote.

Krahel said Friday that she found it peculiar that such a memo would be issued in the wake of Piccione’s and Spiwak’s firings.

“I question the authority under which the authors of the Human Resources response to the Wiggins report were authorized to act,” Krahel said in a prepared statement. “I find it very inappropriate that this response was generated by three individuals whose actions were critiqued within the Wiggins report, and I question their motivation” for releasing this report to lawyers for the two terminated Medical Center executives.

The Wiggins report, Krahel pointed out, was the result of an independent audit. “Clearly, the view of three Human Resource staff members at UCIMC will substantially differ from unbiased individuals holding juris doctorates,” she said. “In short, I feel the Human Resources response is tremendously self-serving and further evidence of the retaliatory nature of the Medical Center administration.”

The personnel administrators’ memo alleges that complaints about Krahel’s performance arose soon after she came to the university in September, 1993. According to the memo, she had difficulty maintaining effective relations with physicians, she had trouble planning and made “excuses for her shortcomings.”

Krahel’s lack of improvement prompted Piccione to reassign Krahel to another job in June, 1994, the memo states. The three personnel administrators contended that Spiwak believed Krahel ought to be terminated, but Piccione believed she should be kept on because she had “important skills.”

The memo states that UCI Medical Center administrators did not obtain a copy of Krahel’s whistle-blower report until July 29, 1994--suggesting that they could not have begun retaliating against her in February, 1994, as the management audit alleges. The memo authors, repeating a claim made publicly by Piccione and her attorneys, contend Krahel wrapped herself in the “protection of a whistle-blower flag because of her failing job performance.”

The memo states that placing Krahel on paid leave in July was not punitive but was intended to allow the university to investigate the charges against her. In September, Piccione determined there was insufficient evidence against Krahel to discipline her, the memo states.

“The investigator’s contention that Krahel was not afforded minimum due process is just not so,” contended the administrators, who participated in Krahel’s review.