Letter from Chip Northrup

Physician Should Be Bassett Head

In Bassett’s 102 year history, Staci Thompson is the first CEO that is not a physician. A physician is held to a higher ethical standard than a business person. They teach ethics in medical school, in business school they teach accounting. Doctors relate to each other in ways that non-doctors cannot fathom. The CEO should be able to relate to Bassett’s most important employees, the doctors, on both a professional and ethical level. The doctors are what determine the reputation of the hospital, its efficiency, the standard of its service and, yes, its revenue. The CEO’s primary task is to recruit and retain good doctors. A fellow doctor can do that.

The recent layoffs may have been necessary to cut costs, but the doctors whose staffs were cut were not consulted. More experienced staff members were cut, leaving less experienced staff to take up the slack. More productive doctors have left, taking their staff with them. Government subsidized healthcare may make up the bulk of Bassett’s revenue, but the more profitable departments are dependent on productive, ethical doctors. So management’s primary constituency are the doctors. Even a Wharton MBA knows that.

Chip Northrup
Cooperstown