Summa loses bid to restart emergency residency program

The accrediting agency for physician training programs nationwide has denied Summa Health’s request to restart its emergency medicine residency program.

In a short memo sent to employees Tuesday, Cindy Kelley, vice president of medical education for the Akronbased health system, said the full letter detailing the reason for the denial will come within 60 days.

“At that time, we can address the areas for improvement and look forward to submitting the application again,” she wrote in her memo.

“While this is disappointing news, we know that we are building the core faculty and infrastructure for a strong emergency medicine residency in the future. We look forward to continuing this journey,” she wrote.

In February 2017, the Accreditation Council on Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) revoked the hospital’s ability to train resident emergency department doctors because of problems resulting from an abrupt ER physician staffing change on New Year’s Day. Negotiations failed between the health system and Summa Emergency Associates, the group that staffed the Summa emergency rooms for more than 40 years.

The switch to Canton-based U.S. Acute Care Solutions (USACS) resulted in upheaval at Summa, including the resignation of then-CEO Dr. Thomas Malone within weeks after hundreds of doctors voted no confidence in his leadership.

In revoking Summa’s emergency medicine residency program, the accreditation council determined there were delays in obtaining specialized care for patients with possible strokes, and first-year residents and rotating residents were seeing patients without supervision and patients were being sent home without ever been seen or examined by an attending physician. There also were allegations of intimidation of resident doctors and a ruling that the new teaching staff lacked the experience to train new doctors.

The demise of the emergency medicine residency program, effective in July 2017, meant 21 trainees in what was to be a three-year program had to find new programs. Most left the area, with a few going to Akron General.

In a statement to the Beacon Journal, Summa Interim CEO Dr. Cliff Deveny said: “We have made a great deal of progress in our emergency departments during the past year. And while we would have liked a different outcome from the residency application process, we remain fully committed to working with our colleagues at USACS to start a new Emergency Medicine Residency Program at Summa. To that end, we look forward to receiving additional feedback from the ACGME so we can understand why the decision was made and how to best incorporate that feedback as we move forward.”

Summa has been working to rebuild its program.

In the fall of 2017, U.S. Acute Care Solutions hired Dr. David Seaberg, and he was named Summa’s chairman of the emergency department. Seaberg came from the University of Tennessee, where he chaired the emergency medicine department and was former dean of the college of medicine.