James CEO leaves amid unifying plan
The resignation of Dr. Michael Caligiuri as chief executive officer of Ohio State University’s cancer center is the latest in a handful of high-level departures from the university as its works toward a unified vision for its medical center.
Ohio State President Dr. Michael V. Drake announced Caligiuri’s resignation in a message to faculty and staff at the Wexner Medical Center on Wednesday. Pelotonia brings in recordbreaking $26.2 million /
No reason was given for the resignation.
Caligiuri, 61, will return to his tenured faculty position and will serve in a new role as special adviser to the president through the remainder of the year, Drake’s announcement said.
Caligiuri, who has not responded to Dispatch requests for an interview, declined to discuss his resignation with a reporter during his appearance Thursday night at a Pelotonia fundraising announcement at the Express Live! bar in the Arena District.
He received a rock-starlike ovation from the more than 400 people in attendance when he took the stage.
“I need to resign more often,” Caligiuri quipped. He noted that several people had approached him and asked, “Are you OK?”
“I’m great. Now I want to tell you why,” Caligiuri said.
Caligiuri said the Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital has become the third-largest cancer hospital in America. He said that 99 percent of the beds are filled with a waiting list and the hospital recently received a 100 percent rating from the National Cancer Institute.
“It’s a really good time, a fabulous time for me to turn the page and recharge and refresh,” Caligiuri said.
Miguel Perez, vice president and a spokesman for Pelotonia, said Caligiuri “has been a pivotal force” behind the nonprofit’s fundraising bicycle ride since the beginning, helping to form the partnership between the nonprofit and The James and said Caligiuri has ridden in the event.
“He’s inspired this whole movement, and we know he’ll continue to be involved.”
A transition team has been put in place and will work toward finding a new leader for Ohio State’s Comprehensive Cancer Center and Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute. But new leadership at The James will have a different reporting structure, university spokesman Chris Davey said Thursday.
Caligiuri reported directly to the university president, which is fairly uncommon for cancer centers, Davey said. The new leader of The James will instead report to a new chancellor of Ohio State’s medical center, a position that the university is currently working to fill.
“We’re focused on continuing to work together as a team where everyone is unified with a common vision for the medical center,” Davey said.
Caligiuri’s departure follows that of Dr. Sheldon Retchin, who stepped down as CEO of the Wexner Medical Center in May after a group of physicians and professors signed a letter of no-confidence in his leadership. The university has maintained that allegations raised against him in those letters were untrue, but some of the complaints surrounded the medical center’s relationship with the cancer program.
In the first of a small series of letters, a group of 25 employees — all cancer doctors and researchers — cited a specific concern with Retchin and his team asserting their leadership over The James.
“Placing any aspect of the cancer program under Dr. Retchin and/or his team would be a fatal blow to the continued success of the OSUCCC-James and would put at risk the economic benefits … and the collaborative environment that the OSUCCC-James has developed over the last 20 years …”
Caligiuri steps down amid increasing tensions at the medical center, much of which revolve around the cancer center’s independence, detailed in the December issue of Columbus Monthly.
Spats over The James’ independence have broken out from time to time since its founding, Columbus Monthly reported. Those haven’t publicly involved Caligiuri, but he has survived them and remained a constant in medical center leadership, outlasting many others.
Drake announced earlier this month that the university is launching a nationwide search for a chancellor who will replace Retchin and oversee the medical center and the university’s entire healthsciences system. Details of the new position are still being developed, but the new role is intended to “reflect the size and complexity of the health-sciences enterprise,” Drake told The Dispatch.
Since the announcement, speculation has swirled about whether the cancer program would fall under the new chancellor’s purview. The university confirmed Thursday that it would.
“The state of the Wexner Medical Center has never been better,” said Davey, citing the medical center’s most successful fiscal year last year, high patient
satisfaction scores and being named one of the best hospitals in the country for the 25th straight year.
“The way forward is to continue to organize and operate ourselves effectively and efficiently as one medical center, within one university, focused on one goal: the health and wellness of the people we serve,” he said.
Seeking independence and control isn’t uncommon within hospital systems, said J.B. Silvers, a professor of health finance at Case Western Reserve University, especially for a comprehensive cancer center, where a prospective payment system exemption, revenue, research funding and prestige are often in play.
“Everybody loves to build their own little fiefdom,” Silvers said. “Trying to manage it is like herding cats.”
Caligiuri’s and Retchin’s resignations were preceded by the September 2016 departure of Dr. Ali Rezai, a leading neuroscientist who took a position with the health system at West Virginia University, where former Ohio State president E. Gordon Gee is president.
Some turnover at hospital systems is to be expected, Silvers said, given the high level of talent of the faculty and researchers. The important thing is to make sure the top talent isn’t leaving for the wrong reasons and that the university successfully manages such transitions, he said.
“I wish them good luck, because if you don’t do the transition right, it can be really messy and very damaging for the institution,” he said. “It’s an opportunity to change the focus and pull things together.”