Southeast Texas Medical Associates, LLP James L. Holly, M.D. Southeast Texas Medical Associates, LLP


Letters - Pannill June 9, 1972 Erwin Charge Challenged
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SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS—Friday, June 9, 1972 Final Edition        

Supplement Secrecy Denied
Erwin Charge Challenged
by KEMPER DIEHL and BILL REDDELL Of the Express Staff

Salary supplements at the medical school had been discussed by the Board of Regents, a member of the board reavealed.

A member of the University of Texas Board of Regents has challenged the contention by Regent Frank Erwin that Dean F. Carter Pannill of the UT MEDICAL School had “deliberately concealed” from the board $54,000 in salary supplements paid medical school faculty members.

Pannill earlier this week revealed to the Express that he had been given the option of obtaining the resignation of Dr. Leon Cander, the chairman of the Department of Medicine and Physiology, or facing action by the attorney general to recover the salary payments. 

Such salary supplements are common in U.S. medical schools.  Identity of faculty members who received the funds in controversy has not been revealed.

A member of the Board of Regents who asked not to be identified told the Express Thursday there had been no effort at secrecy regarding the supplements on the part of Pannill and they had been discussed before the board. 

He dismissed the matter as not amounting to a legitimate issue, though it was the principal reason advanced by Erwin this week when he revealed that Pannill had been fired as dean of the school.

UT System Chancellor Charles LeMaistre Tuesday relieved Pannill because of “internal administrative problems.”  Firing of Pannill is to be taken up Friday at the UT System’s Board of Regents meeting in Galveston. 

Mike Quinn, assistant to LeMaistre, Thursday said the matter will be reported to the board by LeMaistre, but indicated the discussion of the matter would be in a closed session. 

Pannill reportedly will appear at the session slated to begin at 9 a.m. Friday in the Moody Medical Library.

Meanwhile, Larry Holly, a fourth year medical student who serves as a member of the executive council of the Association of American Medical Colleges, called upon LeMaistre to clarify and expand on remarks he made at a Wednesday press conference which could be interpreted to mean that the accreditation of the medical school might be in danger.

LeMaistre during a conference at which be announced the appointment of Dr. Truman Blocker as interim dean of the school, stated, “The accreditation is not presently in jeopardy, but it has been under study,” and also remarked, “There have been two accreditation reports of this institution and the recommendations are under study.”

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Holly said that it would be reasonable for persons not familiar with accreditation procedures to infer from LeMaistre’s remark that the school “is in imminent danger of jeopardizing its accreditation” and that “the accreditation will be saved by the ouster of Dr. Pannill.”

In a special deliver letter to LeMaistre, Holly wrote that any such interpretation would be unfair to Dr. Pannill, to students presently enrolled in the school and to the many students who will be applying to medical schools “and who will hesitate to attend an exciting and innovative school because its accreditation is under study.”

The fourth year student noted he had read the most recent accreditation report mentioned by LeMaistre and found it “highly laudatory” of the efforts of Dr. Pannill and of the students.  He pointed out that accreditation site visits are carried out periodically at every medical school. 

Joining in the rising battle over the medical school was G. J. Sutton, Democratic nominee for state representative form Dist. 57E.  

Sutton attributed the ouster of Pannill and resignation of Cander to pressure from the forces of organized medicine.  He asserted:

“I think the Texas Medical Association just wants the school to turn out doctors and does not want it to do any for the poor—the TMA just wants to make it a doctor factory.”

Sutton declared the medical school purge is closely related to the recent extension of an Office of Economic Opportunity clinic to the black poverty area in eastern San Antonio.

“It looks like Cander wants to do something about poverty medicine,” said Sutton adding, “The TMA just isn’t going to take it.”