A Welcome Addition at UCI
UC Irvine, whose ranks of professors have included Nobel Prize winners, has lured another star, this time for its troubled medical school.
Though it would be unfair to expect Dr. Keith L. Black to turn around the medical school’s struggling neurosurgery department simply by showing up, it would be good if his presence attracts the patients and young doctors the school needs.
Black, 40, was named one of Time magazine’s “Heroes of Medicine” last year and was profiled in a 1996 PBS series. He already is director of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s neurological institute in Los Angeles, and he will retain that post while at UCI.
The medical school has about 40 residency programs for doctors. Last year, the American Council for Graduate Medical Education found problems in some of those programs, including inadequate supervision of residents and not providing them with enough exposure to a variety of procedures and medical conditions.
School officials said most of the problems have been corrected but conceded that a drop in the number of patients at UCI Medical Center in Orange was a problem.
Fewer patients mean fewer opportunities for doctors to practice their specialties and learn from more experienced physicians.
The neurosurgery department was put on probation, though it retained its accreditation, as did all the other programs. But neurosurgery was hurt not only by difficulty attracting patients but also by an absence of a chairman for nearly two years. Several neurosurgical residents took positions at other medical schools.
Black is considered a world-class brain surgeon and has attracted patients from many countries. He was on staff at UCLA Medical Center until he moved to Cedars-Sinai last year. At UCLA, he performed more than 200 brain tumor surgeries a year. He also has published more than 100 scientific articles.
Black’s arrival is but one of several steps the school has taken to try to improve the neurosurgery department. In the new era of managed care, the medical school may not be able to maintain all its residency programs, but bringing Black on board is a good move to try to turn around a department that needed help.
