The impending national discussion about broadening access to healthcare, improving medical practice, and saving money is giving a group of scientists an opening to propose shutting down the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at the National Institutes of Health. Critics of alternative medicine say the vast majority of studies of homeopathy, acupuncture, therapeutic touch, and other treatments based on unconventional understandings of physiology and disease have shown little or no effect. Further, they argue that the field's more-plausible interventions can be studied just as well in other parts of NIH, where they would need to compete head-to-head with conventional research projects.
Broward Health's North Broward Medical Center has named Bruce E. Janke, MD, medical director of its newly opened Joint Replacement Center. Janke played a vital role in the process of attaining Joint Commission Certification for hip and knee replacement at NBMC, the first and only hospital in Broward County, FL, to achieve this certification. The new Joint Replacement Center features private patient rooms, family centered patient education, group therapy, and the latest advances in joint replacement surgery.
Caritas Holy Family Hospital in Methuen, MA, will have a new president effective May 4. Lester P. Schindel, most recently president of New England Sinai Hospital in Boston, will succeed Tom Sager, who will take over a newly created position as executive director of the Holy Family Foundation, and vice president of Caritas Christi Health Care Development. Sager, of Haverhill, officially takes on the new job June 12. Sager will remain on for about three months at the hospital to help Schindel with the transition.
Roger Seaver, president and CEO of Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital in Valencia, has been named chairman of the Hospital Association of Southern California HASC for 2009. Seaver was named president and CEO of Henry Mayo in 2001 after being brought in as a consultant to assist the financially troubled hospital.
LifePoint Hospitals, Inc. has named Jeffrey Sherman, 43, executive vice president and CFO. Sherman, currently vice president and treasurer at Tenet Healthcare, will succeed David M. Dill who, as planned, will become the LifePoint's executive vice president and COO. Sherman and Dill will report directly to William F. Carpenter III, president and CEO.
David Benn, the chief hospital executive for Sutter Health in the Northern San Joaquin Valley in California, has a new position overseeing the three Sutter hospitals and physician organizations in the region. In addition to serving as CEO for Memorial Medical Center, Benn has been responsible for coordinating services with Sutter Tracy Community Hospital and Memorial Hospital Los Banos. He now oversees the hospitals and the Sutter Gould Medical Foundation, which has medical offices in Stanislaus, San Joaquin and Merced counties. A new CEO will be hired at Memorial in Modesto.