UH medical
faculty stands
by its dean

Students on hunger strike

By Helen Altonn
Star-Bulletin

The University of Hawaii medical school faculty is in an uproar about an administration plan to replace Dr. Sherrel Hammar as the school's interim dean.

The action has triggered a barrage of letters, calls and a petition with more than 327 signatures to UH President Kenneth Mortimer and Vice President Dean Smith supporting Hammar.

Hammar informed the school's executive committee last Friday that he is being replaced and will return to pediatrics.

'We need leadership,
and we have a leader we
trust implicitly.'
Dr. Marian Melish
PEDIATRICS PROFESSOR, FORMER
CHAIRWOMAN OF FACULTY SENATE

Also that day, Smith told the Faculty Senate he'd like to appoint a permanent dean by July 1, said Dr. Marian Melish, pediatrics professor and former Faculty Senate chairwoman.

"We were quite surprised because we don't think there's been any process that we'd expect to happen to appoint a permanent dean," Melish said.

Smith declined to discuss Hammar's replacement, saying it's a personnel matter. However, he said the search for a permanent dean is on hold after three leading mainland candidates declined the position.

Melish said the search committee thought it had finished its work and was "called back for an extraordinary session" to consider three local candidates.

One is a medical school faculty member who was on the search committee and resigned to apply for the dean's job.

Melish said the committee felt that the remaining candidates, despite their fine qualities, didn't represent the type of dean it was asked to find.

She said Hammar "has done a wonderful job" and the faculty is "extremely happy" with him. "We would prefer that he be named interim dean for a limited period of time while the search continues."

Dr. James Hastings, professor and chairman of medicine in the school, said the faculty's feelings about Hammar "were evidenced at the convocation Saturday. There was a standing ovation for Hammar."

Hastings said the petition signed by faculty members "offered support for his leadership, for his competence and for his ability to bring the school together in a very tough time.

"The faculty feels he has led us in the right direction and he has begun a healing process of a lot of dissension that was in the school when he came."

Hammar had planned to retire but accepted the appointment of interim dean in December 1996 when Christian Gulbrandsen retired.

Melish said the faculty is urging the administration to reconsider asking Hammar to step down. "We need leadership, and we have a leader we trust implicitly," Melish said.

She said the faculty was divided and the school had serious financial troubles when Hammar took over.

"He has moved on many fronts to stabilize our situation, and we're extremely grateful."

Smith said the search committee has recommended either continuing the search for a permanent dean "or, if we have to make some changes in the short term, close the search and start all over again.

"The commitment is there to go after a first-class dean for this medical school," he said. "We have been very close, but candidates looking at the school see instability of hospital funding and state support. This stops us dead with these guys."

Turning down the position were Dr. Edwin Cadman, professor of medicine and an executive at Yale New Haven Hospital; Dr. Larry Shapiro, chief of pediatrics at the University of California at San Francisco medical school; and King Holmes, University of Washington professor of medicine.

Holmes, the latest candidate courted for the post, has a UH doctoral degree and is on an advisory committee for the Pacific Biomedical Research Center.

Smith said "he would have been a real catch" but he shares concerns of the other candidates about the school's support.

The hospitals contribute $30 million annually to the school's operations, but that could diminish with hospital reimbursements being cut, he said.

The UH had asked the recent Legislature for $45 million over five years to build up the school.

Only $4.9 million was appropriated to remodel quarters for Anatomy and Reproductive Biology professor Ryuzo Yanagimachi's mice-cloning team, which doesn't address the basic problems, Smith said.

UH students to go on hunger strike Faculty, too, at the School of Public Health will try to push for accreditation By Susan Kreifels Star-Bulletin Students and faculty at the University of Hawaii School of Public Health plan a hunger strike of water and orange juice starting Monday outside UH President Kenneth Mortimer's building in an attempt to force Mortimer to say whether he will support moves to keep the school's accreditation. Bill Wood, the school's acting dean, is scheduled to meet the accreditation team June 1. The school has been on probation for two years. John Casken, a public health assistant professor who will participate in the hunger strike, said he expects at least five to 10 students to participate, but students are just beginning to organize the protest. Casken said a letter was to be sent to Mortimer today informing him of the strike. One essential element for accreditation: an agreement with the state Department of Health that would allow qualified state Department of Health staff to teach public health students. Wood said 10 DOH staff members have volunteered to teach courses. Wood said today that the agreement has been OK'd by attorneys and sitting in Mortimer's office for two weeks, with no action taken. UH spokesman Jim Manke said Mortimer was meeting with the UH Board of Regents. The accreditation team from the Council on Education for Public Health also said the school must get a permanent dean and see no more budget or faculty cuts. Mortimer has discussed putting the School of Public Health under the UH medical school.