Just four months after being named
the permanent CEO of the University’s Medical Center and Health System,
Dr. Peter G. Traber announced that he would be leaving Penn to become
head of clinical pharmacology and experimental medicine at GlaxoSmithKline,
the health-care company that will represent the proposed merger of SmithKlineBeecham
and Glaxo Wellcome. Traber, who had served as Frank Wister Thomas Professor
of Medicine and chair of the Department of Medicine before taking over
as interim CEO of the Health System when Dr. William N. Kelley was ousted
in February, was named to the permanent post in March. [“Gazetteer,” March/April,
May/June.] His resignation, announced in late July, took effect at the
end of last month.
While
Traber is taking a leave of absence from the Penn faculty, Dr. Judith
Rodin CW’66, president of the University, said: “We look forward to Peter’s
continued association with the School of Medicine, and the University,
in the future.” He had also been serving as interim dean of the School
of Medicine.
Although
the move appeared to have taken the University administration by surprise,
Rodin praised Traber as having done “an outstanding job for the University
and its Health System,” adding: “We are sorry to see him go, but we recognize
that this is a tremendous new opportunity for him.”
In
a press release, Traber said he had been “very privileged to serve the
outstanding faculty and staff” at the medical school and Health System,
adding: “Nothing short of the unique opportunity I have been offered could
have persuaded me to take a different direction at this point.” If the
merger is approved, GlaxoSmithKline will be one of the world’s largest
research-based pharmaceutical companies, with an annual research-and-development
budget of approximately $4 billion.
A
national search for a combined CEO and dean of the School of Medicine
is underway. In the meantime, the Health System and the medical school
are being run by a team consisting of Dr. Arthur K. Asbury, the Van Meter
Emeritus Professor of Neurology, who has been elevated from deputy dean
of the medical school to interim dean; Dr. Robert Martin, chief operating
officer of the Health System and now interim CEO of its health-services
components; and Dr. David Longnecker, the Robert Dunning Dripps Professor
of Anesthesia who serves as chair of Clinical Practices of the University
of Pennsylvania. That leadership, said Rodin, “offers a wealth of pertinent
experience,” and will, in conjunction with the trustees of the Health
System and the University, “continue to support the excellent teaching,
research and clinical care that is the hallmark of the University.”
Traber’s
resignation comes at a time when the Health System is recovering from
two years of crushing deficits that led to a downgrading of its own bond
rating and the University’s. It posted operating losses of $91 million
in fiscal 1998 and $198 million in fiscal 1999, and had eliminated some
2,800 positions, roughly 20 percent of its workforce. Those cuts, along
with other belt-tightening measures, have reduced the operating loss to
an estimated $20-$25 million in fiscal 2000. In the coming fiscal year,
said Rodin, the Health System’s leadership is “resolutely focused on achieving
better than break-even performance.”
Despite the Health System’s
financial troubles, the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP)
and the rest of the Health System have been treating record numbers of
patients. Over the past year, HUP was awarded the National Quality Health
Care Award, the Excellence in Health Care Risk Management Award and the
Ernest A. Codman Award. In addition, U.S. News & World Report
listed it in the “Honor Roll” of the nation’s best hospitals in its July
17 issue; the same magazine ranked the School of Medicine third in the
nation.