UMC, anesthesia provider not abandoning educational focus

The Paul L. Foster School of Medicine’s anesthesiology residency program will close at the end of June, when University Medical Center stops funding the once-again fully-accredited program. UMC recently chose not to renew its $11.2 million anesthesia contract with the school, which had provided those services to the hospital for 40 years.

It’s a story ABC-7 first broke on Monday.

UMC disputes claims by the school’s faculty and students in a letter that said the hospital is abandoning its educational focus. The letter said the decision may jeopardize Texas Tech’s other residency programs and possibly the school’s very existence.

“When you start looking at does this make more economic sense to do it differently, and you forget about the teaching component, and the importance that every one of these disciplines has to the teaching component, then I think you’re making a mistake,” said former El Paso Mayor John Cook at last week’s UMC Board of Managers meeting.

The school’s anesthesia residency program lost accreditation from 2005-2011. In an email Thursday, the accrediting agency said the reasons are confidential. But ABC-7 is told the program has a reputation for poor leadership and low board-exam scores.

“After a comprehensive and careful review, the board ultimately voted to select Somnia,” said UMC CEO Jim Valenti at the meeting.

The board recently voted 5-2 to give the contract to New York-based Somnia Inc., after the hospital’s selection and finance committees both voted unanimously for Somnia. But the school’s letter said Somnia’s bid failed to cover key requirements from the request for proposal.

The hospital wouldn’t provide ABC-7 with Somnia’s bid for legal reasons, but the school’s faculty and students somehow got ahold of it. The letter from the school said Somnia’s bid was about $70,000 cheaper than the school’s.

“It appears that our primary teaching institution is steadily backing away from their commitment to help educate our future doctors,” said the school’s Faculty Council President Dr. Susan Watts at the meeting.

But Somnia CEO Marc Koch told ABC-7 that the company would provide all requested services. He also emphasized that Somnia would provide anesthesia training to Texas Tech residents of other specialties.

“We always, always, always try our very hardest to recruit and retain from the local community or people with ties to the area,” Koch said.

“This decision is no way a sign of lessening commitment by UMC to our 40-year partnership with Texas Tech,” Valenti said at the meeting.

The school’s letter said UMC’s decision was an attempt to dissolve the partnership. But the school’s communication director said the anesthesia contract is just one of many patient-care contracts with UMC. She said the school is “healthy” and looks forward to a continuing partnership with UMC.