The Curriculum Committee also met at a time when practicing physicians have a difficult time meeting. Much of its business was conducted by PhD’s and other non-DO’s. Adding to this problematic environment, one of the co-chairs of curriculum was meeting with the Dean without knowledge of the other co-chair to accomplish a prearranged agenda for the Curriculum Committee. Another tenuous dynamic of the curriculum committee was the placement of the president’s wife, a psychologist, on the committee. This had an added effect of suppressing discussion. The unusual curriculum initiated by Dr. Kuchera has had a controversial and negative impact on student education at KCOM. The impact of this disarray of the curriculum committee has adversely affected student education by using students as test subjects in an untried and untested curriculum. The effect of changing the anatomy class to five terms, for example, precludes students from transferring credits to other osteopathic colleges who do not recognize the curricular format. The curriculum is in a state of imbalance with OTM outweighing any other discipline. The curriculum should be balanced at the expense of no subject to ensure quality student education at KCOM.
The Dean has also used other meetings to promote his own agenda, rather than to conduct business of the college or for him to gather information. A recent ECF (Executive Committee of the Faculty) recommendation to the board regarding a new faculty appointment for a full professorship, was intentionally misrepresented to the President and the Board of Trustees by the Dean. The faculty was informed of the new appointment only after the fact. Other deserving faculty members who had many years of service to the college were passed over in favor of the Dean’s personal appointments. Our only avenue of complaint was at a faculty meeting where the President tried to suppress the protest before finally listening to our concerns. The President openly, in the presence of the Dean, described the Dean as “immature” and “lacking good judgement”, but he refused to take any action. Furthermore, the Dean suggested the Clinical Faculty representative needed to “correct” his report to the Board of Trustees on at least two occassions. The copy of his suggested “corrections” are still available from the April 2000 KCOM Board of Trustees Report.(7)
The Dean has also misrepresented the faculty’s opinion regarding an increase of class sizes to the AOA. The faculty’s general attitude is that due to decreasing osteopathic post-graduate training positions, class size should at least remain the same, if not decrease. A poll of faculty at a Clinical Faculty meeting in April showed about 21 of 24 people present objected to increasing class size. Prior to this poll, the dean misconstrued the wishes of the clinical faculty with an informal written questionnaire. The “ballot” of the faculty was a vaguely worded subjective measurement of our “feelings” of the appropriate class size. The faculty was not aware the administration would represent us to the AOA using this measurement of our “feelings”. With the current absence of a significant number of resident clinical faculty in Kirksville, quality osteopathic medical education would diminish if class sizes were increased. This irresponsible action is also not in the best interests of future osteopathic graduates who compete for decreasing numbers post-graduate slots.(7)
