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


Letters - Pannill June 9, 1972 Interim Dean Bringing His Own People
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Page 10 A     SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS—Friday, June 9, 1972

Two More Doctors Resign
Interim Dean ‘Bringing His Own People In’
by KEMPER DIEHL and BILL REDDELL Of the Express Staff

The interim Dean of the University of Texas Medical School at San Antonio is expected to bring new staff members to San Antonio to help him run the facility.

A spokesman for the medical school told the Express late Thursday that interim dean Dr. Truman G. Blocker Jr. “will bring his own people in” to administer the facility.  Blocker was named interim dean Wednesday by UT System Chancellor Charles LeMaistre.  He is president of the UT medical facility at Galveston and will return to that post when a new dean is named here in about “two or three months.” 

Meanwhile, at least two resignations were submitted Thursday in the latest shockwaves to rock the medical center here this week.  Dr. Leon Cander, chairman of the department of medicine and physiology who figured prominently in the controversy and shake-up, announced he would leave the medical school next year and resigned his chairmanship effective Jan. 1.

The assistant dean of the school, Dr. Fred M. Taylor, also resigned his administrative post effective 3 p.m. Thursday and announced his resignation as professor of pediatrics effective Aug. 31.

When Blocker takes over Monday, he will replace F. Carter Pannill who was fired earlier this week by LeMaistre after it had been disclosed by Pannill that he had been asked to secure the resignation of Cander.

Cander, designer of a controversial federally funded poverty clinic experiment, had been the target of some of the regents and Pannill had earlier told the Express News he would quit if Cander was ousted.

Monday, Pannill said he had been asked to secure two resignations from Cander for different dates.  It was subsequently announced by LeMaistre that Pannill was out as dean because of “internal matters.”  LeMaistre had said it was a “disrupting experience” to discuss internal problems at the medical school with Pannill and then read it “the next day in the press.”

LeMaistre is to give a report to the regents at their board meeting in Galveston Friday.

Pannill’s plans were not immediately known, but LeMaistre stress that Pannill’s status as a professor of internal medicine and physiology is not affected by his removal as dean of the medical facility. 

Meanwhile, Regent John Peace said internal strife at the medical school had caused the loss of more than 20 faculty members and residents in recent months.  Taylor, however, said that while it could not be determined how many have left the school for what reasons, he thought the figure was high.

Peace said of the departures “This is was what we have been talking about when we mentioned internal matters and what we are trying to settle.” 

Peace said that since early this year when Dr. Henry McGill was removed as chairman of the Department of Pathology, 12 faculty pathologists and two resident pathologists have resigned.  He said the school now has only three pathologists.  Peace also said faculty members have left in the anathesiology and radiology departments. 

Peace said the departures have indicated friction in the Department of Medicine and Physiology.  Peace produce one letter from a departing faculty member who disapproved of the way in which McGill had been removed and the letter complained of the development of an air of “anarchy” at the school.

Peace also expanded on reports made by Regent Frank Erwin regarding contributions made by Dr. Pannill, using university funds, to State Reps. Frank Lombardino and Bob Vale and State Sen. Joe Bernal. 

He said that ticket purchases to functions honoring the candidates last fall and winter might be considered other than campaign contributions, since primary elections had not started at that time.

He said, however, that a state voucher for $100 for a May 29, 1972 cocktail reception for Bernal had been written in the midst of Bernal’s runoff campaign and involved the use of university funds.