Fall Faculty Meeting

Good morning.  

Today, I will share some of the information I presented at last week’s Fall Faculty Meeting that I think is of general interest to the entire Medical Center community. First, though, I have a fun announcement: John Wayne Casserole is back! 

If you’ve joined the Medical Center within the past 10 years or so, you would not have had the chance to get a delicious serving of one of this institution’s gifts to the world – the UMMC cafeteria’s version of the John Wayne Casserole, which also has different names, like cattle drive casserole.  

Lore has it that the southwest-inspired dish first showed up in the late 1970’s when the famous actor sent in a recipe for a charity cookbook. Over the years Wayne’s recipe was tweaked, replacing eggs with meat for a hearty casserole. The UMMC cafeteria started serving it, but used a unique recipe – notably, biscuits as the base – that was widely popular with faculty, staff and students for many years and spread off campus far and wide. It wasn’t long before UMMC’s version was considered the one to beat. Even today, when you search “John Wayne Casserole,” a home-friendly version of the UMMC recipe that was printed by Mississippi Magazine in 2011 will be in most of the results. 

It's unknown why we stopped serving it, but it’s back starting today. Executive chef at our cafeteria, Jonathan Boyd, took an existing recipe and expanded it for commercial use. I’m excited to try it! 

Now, on to today’s column. 

We had a packed house last week – overflowing, actually – for the faculty meeting. It’s energizing to know that our faculty want to be informed and engaged with the Medical Center. Here’s some of what I shared with them.  

Celebrations

We started off by applauding 14 faculty members who recently marked their 20th work anniversary here – that’s almost 300 years of incredible experience they bring to this institution.

• Nathan Beavers, School of Dentistry 
• Charles Bishop, School of Medicine 
• John M. Faust, School of Medicine 
• Craig K. Hallstrom, School of Medicine 
• Alicia Rose Hathorn, School of Dentistry 
• John T. Lam, School of Medicine 
• Mary E. Marquart, School of Medicine 
• Gailen Marshall, School of Medicine 
• Deborah Minor, School of Medicine 
• Marc E. Mitchell, School of Medicine 
• Risa Moriarity, School of Medicine 
• Charles Pound, School of Medicine 
• Kim Tarver, School of Medicine 
• Risa Webb, School of Medicine 

We also celebrated news that, for the fourth straight year, UMMC was named by Forbes magazine as a top in-state employer among hospitals and health systems. We strive to be the kind of place where people want to come to work – and stay 20 years. Where patients want to come for their care, and where students want to be trained. Thank you all for being a part of it and thank you for being here. 

October 24 was the 70th anniversary of the Medical Center’s ribbon-cutting and grand opening. I thought it was worthwhile to go over some of our current financial statistics and compare them – not all the way back to 1955, but to more recent years:

• Total revenue for 2014-2015 was $1.386 billion, compared to $2.39 billion today.  
• We continue to grow, and the percentage of total revenue we received from state appropriations the previous fiscal year was 8.11% of our budget – significantly lower than a decade earlier, at 13.2% – but still on the high end compared to similar institutions.  

Faculty and finances 

I talked about results from our recent Faculty Standpoint Survey. We had a fantastic response rate – 82%. But one thing that flagged is faculty want more financial transparency. So, I asked that faculty reach out to me or other institutional leaders to let us know what is missing, what that they would like to see when it comes to Medical Center finances and/or their respective department or school. I hope that between now and the next survey that we can get information on what else we can do.  

Speaking of money, I talked about our sources of revenue: Basically, we are growing across all categories, but the one that has grown the most is patient care. And that is why I say high-quality patient care and a positive patient experience should be a top priority for every single person at the Medical Center, whether they actually touch a patient or not in their day-to-day work. 

Now, to our budget. For the first quarter of this fiscal year, we are a little bit ahead of budget. That is a result of revenue growth from patient care and research grants and resource management. So, this is very good news. 

When we finish a year with a positive margin, we have the luxury of making investments in the Medical Center. We have invested in facilities, areas that help us generate revenue and people. The people investment is made via employee market and merit pay increases as well as investments in faculty compensation plans.  

Also, on the subject of revenue sources, our Office of Development is going strong. We’ve had some wonderful news lately of new endowed chairs; this does so much in the way of support and commitment and investment.  

Construction  

The latest numbers show that we had 3,183 learners here at the Medical Center. Many of them will be training in new facilities soon. Here are a couple of construction projects underway:

• The new, $70M School of Nursing building will expand class size by 25%; planned opening: July 2026 
• The $40M School of Dentistry clinical addition will expand the class size for dentists and dental hygienists; planned opening: 2027 

Another large project with lots of energy and focus is the new Cancer Center and Research Institute facility. We’ve raised about half of our $125 million goal. Dr. Rod Rocconi, CCRI director, is leading efforts toward the critical National Cancer Institute designation. This is a multi-year, heavy lift effort that affects all three of our mission areas. But we are making good progress, and this achievement will change the face of the Medical Center. 

Research 

There are a lot of words you can use to describe what’s happening nationally in the world of research, but I went with “weird” and “unusual” – with grants being cancelled, the government shutdown driving lots of uncertainty. We ended the fiscal year with about $100 million in extramural funding. Considering everything, I am “satisfied” with where we ended and recognize there’s still a lot to celebrate. 

Patient care  

One area we can’t celebrate so much: hand hygiene. Compliance is at its lowest in four years, at 83%. That’s still pretty high, but we’re going in the wrong direction. So, to everyone, I say, please find it in your heart to refocus on this. 

But let’s end on a high note, specifically concerning patient care. Last week we held a ribbon-cutting for the Alyce G. Clarke Center for Medically Fragile Children, and there are other projects underway that will benefit our patients like the Adolescent Behavioral Inpatient Unit and Colony Park North. 

Finally, also for the sake of our patients – and yourselves: Get your flu shot; it’s just one more way we can stay true to our goal of A Healthier Mississippi.