December 15, 2008

Dear Colleague:

I am writing to you at this holiday time to inform you of a marvelous way for you to assist those in our University that are faced with furloughs. The UMA executive committee has agreed to match individual gifts through the Trident United Way that are directed by you to the MUSC Employee Furlough Relief Fund. Please find attached a word document and pdf document that both have a copy of your pledge form. We must receive these pledges by January 15 for them to be counted in the current campaign. Send them to Peggy Hotchkiss in our University Development Office (see form).

I realize you have received several pieces of mail inviting you to participate in the Medical University’s Trident United Way (TUW) fund-raising campaign. If you have already made a gift to this campaign, we thank you for your generosity. If you have not, now is your chance and we invite you to do so. If you have made a pledge, we are again asking you to consider increasing your matched contribution that benefits our furloughed MUSC employees. This new fund was created to help those MUSC employees most seriously affected by the university’s impending furlough.

As you know, the Medical University announced in November that 1,200 employees would have to take a four-day furlough to offset significant cuts in its state appropriation. Recognizing the financial hardship this announcement would cause, President Ray Greenberg asked the MUSC Foundation to create a new fund to assist those employees most seriously affected by the loss of income. The fund’s name: the MUSC Employee Furlough Relief Fund.

We are writing to let you know that, this year, you may direct your TUW campaign gift to this effort. Furthermore, University Medical Associates has agreed to match all contributions to this fund by UMA employees and College of Medicine faculty.

The MUSC Employee Relief Furlough Fund will consist entirely of private donations. Therefore, the amount of relief available to each eligible employee will depend on the amount of money contributed. Because all of our work is positively impacted through the hard work of these individuals, we hope to achieve a broad level of participation among UMA and College of Medicine employees. Our goal is to secure as many gifts as possible before year-end, so that we can provide these employees with financial assistance at a time when it is so desperately needed.

Please consider designating your TUW contribution to the MUSC Employee Relief Furlough Fund. In doing so, you can help brighten the holidays for our furloughed colleagues and provide them some much-needed relief during the troubled months that lie ahead. If you have any questions, please call 792-1973 (Peggy Hotchkiss.) Please accept our deepest thanks and warmest wishes for a safe and blessed holiday season.

Sincerely,

Jerry Reves, MD

Where are his explanations for the illegal hiring of unqualified people?

How does he justify trips to Israel and the Virgin Islands? Does the wife really get tickets paid for? Why?

Beyond that, Dr. Austin is only one in a line of RG’s beneficiaries and victims. What does Mr. Taylor have to say about the huge amounts of mullah wasted, thrown down the throne, on RG’s big buddy, David Rawle? I quit MUSC after 12 years hearing about the Rawle mega hundreds of thousands of wasted party dollars planned to open the new hospital. Left the cafeteria for my little office (smaller than a utility closet and I was a practicing REAL physician) to open a letter asking me to give more to the yes campaign. Gave my notice that day and been happy ever since. Cess pool is how I describe the lack of leadership after Jim Edwards carrying MUSC to the brink of greatness.

Tragic for all the employees at MUSC who are feeling like those at Enron. No wonder the rage is pouring out on these pages.

Painful for the spouses and children or Drs. Austin and Greenberg. For you to think all this is from one disgruntled coworker, Dr. Austin, is worrisome over your lack of analytical and communication skills.

Mr. Taylor do your job, please.

CB Elliot

Just when are these bozos going to look at where the real waste is and stop slamming academic programs? Is this a teaching institution or a real estate/marketing firm?

Where is the retreat going to be? I bet the catered lunch will be terrific. It would be a sin not to share the leftovers. Can we come and bring the unemployed temps, laid-off housekeepers, nurses and their starving children?

Here’s an idea. When the bosses assemble around their conference tables or at remote retreats, invite a few low-wage earners along to witness the executive exchange; and share a little of that which you leave on the silver platters.

Also, those little paper balloons that many Food Lion shoppers “buy” to help the little sick kids at Children’s Hospital? Think again. While Mom and Dad are struggling to find a compassionate drugmaker to donate expensive medicine to save little Jimmy’s life, those well-intended bucks are pouring straight into the DCRI, which funnels the money to private start-ups from which profits are directed right back into the pockets of a handful of officials who never even step near a child’s bedside.

So, those of us creating masterful tricks to line our own pockets even after having flushed millions down the ART toilets, “let’s not just persevere but prevail.” Tough times do present abundant opportunities — desperate people and their property can be gotten far more cheaply. Now that’s economics.