Page 2          September 1999         Lillehei remembered Biomedical Graphics, Media Resources merge Letters to the editor

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Lillehei remembered More than 500 people gathered in Mayo Auditorium Aug. 11 to honor C. Walton Lillehei, the father of open heart surgery. Guests included several world-renowned heart surgeons trained by Lillehei.  Pictured are Vincent Gott (left) professor of cardiac surgery at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, and Norman Shumway, heart surgeon at Stanford Medical Center.

Biomedical Graphics, Media Resources merge
Services to remain the same, prices may go down, says new manager

Although the sign on the wall still says Biomedical Graphics, the Academic Health Center’s photography and graphic arts shop has merged with University Media Resources as of Sept. 1.

The move, which has been in the works for several months, preserves services for the AHC and jobs for most of Biomedical Graphic’s 10 employees. It also takes some financial pressure off the AHC Senior Vice President’s Office, which has been subsidizing the enterprise on a short-term basis while making a plan for its future.

The opportunity to merge with Media Resources was for the most part a win-win situation. Only three positions were eliminated. Of those, one person requested to be laid off and one transferred to another part of the AHC.

Dennis Johnson, associate director of Media Resources, which provides photography, audio, visual, and graphics arts services University-wide, will be the new director of Biomedical Graphics. Johnson will remain in his office in the Rarig Center, but Toni Pangborn, who is audiovisual operations manager for Media Resources, will oversee day-to-day operations. Pangborn is manager of audiovisual services for Media Resources’ Moos Tower office.

The range of services will remain pretty much the same, Pangborn says. But she hopes to improve quality and efficiency, and to reduce hourly rates for some services, bringing them in line with Media Resources’ pricing structure.

Media Resources is part of the Distance Education Program administered by University College, which provides continuing education courses for adults. Headquartered in Rarig Center on the West Bank, Media Resources also has offices in the University Press building on University Avenue. Biomedical Graphics will be operated as another satellite office from its current location in the Phillips-Wangensteen building.

Media Resources’ menu of services includes audio-visual support, satellite linkage, TV and video production, interactive television and telemedicine production, tape duplication, online course development, graphic arts, multimedia and electronic imaging, sound engineering and design, and installation of audio visual systems. They also administer KUOM and KUMD, the University’s two radio stations.
For more information about services, call Biomedical Graphics at 626-3939 or the Media Resources’ Moos Tower office at 625-3201.

Letters to the editor
Writer critical of Fairview outing

To the editor:
Many of the medical staff at the Fairview-University Medical Center were invited to the Fairview physician and trustee outing on Aug. 2. It sounded like a wonderful time with tennis, golf, and great food in a pleasant setting. However, in the context of many of the difficulties we have experienced recently in our small part of the Fairview operation at Fairview-University Medical Center, University campus, such invitations and outings are a cause for concern.

When Fairview as a corporation does not have adequate funds to keep the intensive care unit appropriately staffed with nurses so that we can admit severely ill patients to our hospital, when nurses in the understaffed operating room are underpaid and overworked to the point where they leave in numbers large enough to force closing of operating rooms, and similarly affected radiology technologists and film desk personnel leave in such large numbers that our normal operations are delayed and impeded, spending money on such things as physician and trustee outings seems at best misdirected and at worst, capricious.

We must remember that the people who leave are usually those with experience and capabilities that allow them to find better jobs in a new location. We can replace the “person” but often must do so with a temporary or inexperienced substitute, and the quality and intelligence of the institution will inevitably suffer.

It might be more appropriate if the Fairview trustees and directors looked long and hard at annual expenditures and made a sincere effort to demonstrate how they are earmarking certain expenditures to be redirected toward efforts that are more important clinically. Even those of us who would benefit from a relaxed social outing would cheer such corporate responsibility.