Read an Excerpt
Never Surrenderâ"Never Retreat
A Novel of Medical Politics in Texas
By Michael Lieberman Texas Review Press
Copyright © 2012 Michael Lieberman
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-937875-80-0
CHAPTER 1
Tuffy Morgan looked across the kitchen table at her husband Bill, thinking she had made a good marriage, which in fact she had if you allowed that like many successful men, he didn't sense his vulnerabilities. On Tuffy's practical scoreboard, one reason the marriage worked was Bill's honest good sense. At times he could be seduced by his own charisma, which was appreciable, but he always seemed to wobble into the right decision, or at least until recently he had.
"Recently" was the operative word. Morgan had been patient—my God he had been patient. Really, if you looked at it, it had begun almost ten years before, not long after Sandy Wechsler, Sanford Boaz Wechsler to be precise, arrived at Nederlander Hospital as its CEO. As Chair of Travis College of Medicine's Board, Morgan had watched as bit-by-bit the medical school's role at Nederlander Hospital eroded. What had begun as a series of small, easily solvable annoyances like Nederlander Hospital's not asking Travis College of Medicine physicians to help plan the hospital's medical outreach and wellness programs escalated into open warfare when the hospital appointed a new physician head of the diabetes center without the joint participation of the medical school. Soon thereafter the hospital began to hire its own cardiologists to do cardiac angioplasties and stent placements, not only reducing the number of cases available to the medical school's cardiology program for training residents and fellows, but also depriving it of a lucrative source of revenue.
The long-standing affiliation agreement between the institutions was coming to an end, and Morgan and Dean Lorenzo Warnke had worked to reach what Morgan called a "fair and equitable arrangement" with Wechsler and Jimmie Rutherford, Nederlander Hospital's Board Chair. It was ugly. Morgan felt Nederlander Hospital was, as he put it, trying to reduce Travis College of Medicine to servitude. It wanted to cut the amount of support it provided to the medical school each year for academic programs, a slush fund Rutherford had called it, and for administrative and medical services—running the hospital departments like surgery and medicine, educating residents and fellows at the hospital, and serving as chairs of key medical staff committees. What made the negotiations so ugly was that Wechsler and Rutherford and the other hospital leaders seemed hell bent on humbling Travis College of Medicine and humiliating him personally. Some days it felt as if he were taking body blows for the medical school. He despaired of ever developing an agreement that would assure their medical leadership at Nederlander Hospital and their future as a premier school of medicine.
A year ago in the midst of negotiations Warnke had dropped dead on the racket ball court. Without his self-effacing humor and civility to keep the two sides talking, negotiations sputtered, then stalled and nosedived. Morgan was left with two problems. The first he addressed by hiring Cline Consulting to help find a new dean. The other was the intransigence of Nederlander Hospital, which made any progress on the partnership issue impossible. Finally Morgan huddled with Gus Buehl, vice chair of the Travis College of Medicine board, and Bob Ainsworth, chair of the finance committee, and the three of them, more or less among themselves and with little consultation from the rest of the Travis College of Medicine board, tentatively decided to sever relations with Nederlander Hospital altogether and strike out on their own. Morgan's problem was to sell that vision.
And so tonight he and Tuffy sat at the Formica table eating moo shu pork with their fingers. It was as if their airy mock Tudor in Hightower Trace did not exist, as if the gravity of the discussion effaced even the small goldfish pond in the back, presided over by the plump, gallon-sized Buddha that had been installed by the previous owners. Morgan always viewed this accoutrement quizzically anyway. He didn't talk to the Buddha—that would have been out of character for the CEO of Morgan-Gonzalez Construction—but he did spend a great deal of time talking to Tuffy. This was fine with both of them. Morgan was a great talker, a rainmaker, and Tuffy was an even better listener.
His fingers sticky with hoisin sauce, he struggled—his dilemma sat like a fat question mark in the middle of his forehead. He picked up a stuffed pancake and was about to take another bite. He put it down. Selling his vision as much to himself as to Tuffy was the only thing that mattered tonight. It was risky. He knew that, but if he succeeded ... what?
"If this works, it will be great for Travis College of Medicine," he said. "And I have to admit, good for me. The chair of the board is bound to get some credit." As the outside man at Morgan-Gonzalez, he tended toward the voluble and enthusiastic. The downside he left to Marty Gonzalez.
He pushed his plate aside, picked up a fortune cookie and cracked it like an egg on the Formica. "You will be offered an unusual opportunity," he read out loud. The homily brightened him. "I'll say."
"Whatcha thinking?"
"That I really have been offered a great opportunity. It could work. In fact it is likely to work."
Tuffy recognized the expansive look on his face. "So you're feeling lucky."
"Suppose you could say that."
And why not? He had been lucky all his life—that was one reason he had trouble understanding risk. He looked at Tuffy as if to remind her of his accomplishments—captain of the basketball team in high school and president of his fraternity at the University of Texas for starters. He had married a caring woman who had helped him in the early days after college, and he had thrived when he and the Gonzalez brothers went into business. His daughter Olivia had married a Jepson—he considered this an accomplishment. Without his becoming prominent, how would Jett Jepson have found her? He had been lucky even in his misfortunes. A knee injury as a college freshmen had kept him off the basketball court but also out of Vietnam. The death of his first wife from breast cancer had led to friends introducing him to Tuffy. And Morgan- Gonzalez had prospered. Unreasonably, he imagined his good fortune mitigated future risk.
What Bill Morgan thought could work, what the three of them had more or less agreed to, was a ballsy gambit—severing a seventy-year relationship between the medical school and Nederlander Hospital so that Travis College of Medicine could strike out on its own. If Buehl and Ainsworth remained solidly behind the plan, he was home free. The other trustees would fall in line. Of course they would fall in line. Buehl was vice chair of the Travis Board, and if a little dour, Morgan didn't care. He was the Buehl of the Buehl family. Ainsworth held special sway. It wasn't only that he headed the board's finance committee, but he was CEO of Ainsworth Interests. A numbers guy—and numbers guys, Morgan felt, especially when they were as smooth as Ainsworth, could talk circles around anyone. They seemed supportive. But who knew. He worried, perhaps because he knew that like him deep down they too were feeling their way forward.
"You know, Tuffy, if we cut Nederlander Hospital loose, the financial opportunity for Travis is huge. I think you have to be decisive. There's no choice really."
Tuffy licked the hoisin sauce from an index finger. "Go on."
Morgan sat thinking. He picked up his glass and drained what was left of his beer in one large gulp. "If I can make this work, I will have contributed to this community."
"You mean you think you'll be a somebody."
"In part I suppose I do. Is that so bad, to want to be a somebody?"
"Yes and no. Just be clear about your motives. That's all."
He looked at her. He didn't like being lectured to, but Tuffy's advice was always spot on.
"Bill, you already are a somebody. You're the CEO of one of the largest construction companies in Texas. You're chair of the board of Travis College of Medicine and chair of the board of Puentes al Mundo en Texas. Look at all those Hispanic kids you are sending to college. And what about Texas Architectural Design? TAD was your idea. You are a somebody."
Morgan's face clouded over. "Not the way I mean."
That was the problem. He didn't feel like anybody but the rainmaker for Morgan-Gonzalez and the son of a car salesman. Instead of selling Malibus and Camaros, he was pitching construction deals. It didn't matter that the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce had given him a certificate of distinction, or that one of the winners of the TAD competition some years back had narrowly missed being selected to design the George H.W. Bush Presidential library. Morgan dismissed it all. He didn't belong in Hightower Trace or at Cassidy Country Club.
"You really want to bet the ranch? You sure? Deep down, I mean, that breaking off with Nederlander Hospital and setting Travis College of Medicine on an independent course is the right thing to do?"
To Morgan's credit he didn't bristle at her questioning—another thing she liked about him. He looked up from the shards of his fortune cookie and said, "We've been at this a long time with them and nothing is going to change. It's the right thing. It will work. It will put Travis College of Medicine on a better course financially."
He began tearing little shreds from his napkin. Inside, he figured it was a toss up. He tried to imagine it as a business deal—if he were chair of a company board and not a medical school board, what would he do? He told himself he didn't know. Yet he knew as a business venture the risk was huge. But the prize for the medical school was considerable.
"This is the right thing. It will work."
"And if it doesn't?"
"It will." He closed his two fists in front of him as if seizing the reins of a horse. "Don't worry."
"Bill, look at me. No, look at me. One of the reasons I love you is that you do a lot of good things in the community. Don't spoil it. Stop worrying about what people think and do what's right for Travis College of Medicine." She got up and walked around the table and kissed him tenderly. "Bill, you know whatever happens, I love you."
The next afternoon Morgan arrived early and sat alone in the Travis College of Medicine boardroom. He was at the head of its long mahogany table under a bust of Colonel William B. Travis, hero of the Texian revolution. Although no one remembered for sure, the story was that when the College was organized, the founding fathers wanted an unambiguous symbol of courage and dedication for the independent college of medicine. In Colonel Travis they found it. Morgan let out a long sigh. It would be too much to say that Morgan drew courage from Travis's image—he was no idolater. Yet inexplicably he swiveled his chair around and looked at Travis with his high military collar and its single star. Travis's famous words, "Victory or Death," stared back at him from the base. Morgan smiled slightly.
Things weren't nearly so dire. Victory or we fall back and regroup, he thought. The risks seemed minimal. Still he worried over details and even the drink at lunch had not relaxed him. What if Buehl or Ainsworth somehow got cold feet and backed out? This afternoon would be a disaster if one of them blindsided him and quashed the separation. He would look foolish and maybe a little arrogant as well. Normally he arrived early to meet and greet—a part of his job as chair that he considered essential. Morgan traded on relationships. It was a crucial skill here in Texas. People were always figuring, who knew whom, how they were related to one another, and how many generations the family had been in Texas. That was why Buehl and Ainsworth were so important.
This afternoon Morgan would rely on Dr. Maffit to help set the tone of the conversation. That would work. Like Dean Warnke, Maffit was a talker, but he tended toward the grand and extravagant. Morgan wondered where this focused or even obsessed researcher had gotten what he called his gift for vision. It was true that he had not had much real leadership experience at Northwestern beyond chairing the pathology department, but, in his own way, he could command attention. And he was charming. At a cocktail party Bill and Tuffy had hosted for the board before they hired him, Maffit took special pains to engage the women in conversation, even going so far as to say that women were the unacknowledged legislators of the world. Morgan liked this phrase. Where Maffit had gotten it or a confidence that sometimes outstripped his knowledge is hard to say. Perhaps his outsized confidence came from his days as a college wrestler at Harvard or maybe from his extraordinary success as a researcher so early in his career. Or he might simply have been born that way.
Slowly Morgan began to relax. He let his long frame stretch out in his chair and exhaled a slow extended whoosh that morphed to a faint whistle. Still, he fretted about Buehl and Ainsworth. What if it didn't go as planned? He would begin by calling on Maffit to present his vision for the future of the College—concisely, Morgan hoped—and then he would work the board toward a definitive statement about terminating the relationship with Nederlander Hospital. He hoped to be rid of them this afternoon. He had no interest in being tied down by any more white-knuckle negotiating sessions with those SOBs.
Then Morgan was at the door greeting board members as they straggled in, engulfing men and women alike in huge hugs. Each board member got a personalized small pleasantry about something—golf or fishing, or the grandchildren. Finally the board crowded around the table—mostly middle-aged men in expensive suits and a few women. Along the wall in the straight back chairs sat the Travis senior staff and vice presidents.
Maffit also sat to the side waiting to be called to his first presentation. Between moving and his travel schedule he had missed the January and February meetings. Now he stared vaguely out into the prosperous crowd and then looked down the row of administrators. Almost imperceptibly he stopped at the well-shaped figure of Brenda Llewellyn, the VP for Public Affairs. Maffit struggled to refocus himself.
Morgan smiled a practiced, genial smile, called the meeting to order and dispatched the obligatory greetings and approval of the minutes.
"For y'all who don't know him yet, Dan Maffit or should I say Daniel M. Maffit, M.D., Ph.D. is world-class." He motioned to Maffit who gave a slight wave. "He's a real visionary and a great leader. He came to us from Northwestern in Chicago, where he chaired the pathology department and built it into a world-class program. His distinguished pedigree is outlined in this month's board book, but I want to mention that Dan is an internationally known researcher and leader. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. I could go on for a long time, but that's not too shabby. Anyway, he's a world-class guy. Branford Cline Consulting helped our search committee find him and vet him. I'd like to thank the committee and Cline Consulting for all their hard work. The next item on the agenda is to hear from Dr. Maffit."
Actually, Dan Maffit had not been at the top of Cline Consulting's list. No one doubted his brilliance or his integrity, but he had very little administrative or financial experience. The consulting firm had been unable to develop a slate of candidates from the prestigious schools on either coast that could be enticed to Texas. It was a common problem Branford Cline, himself, had pointed out. So Maffit's Midwest origins and his impeccable scientific credentials put him in play and at the top of the search committee's list.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Never Surrenderâ"Never Retreat by Michael Lieberman. Copyright © 2012 Michael Lieberman. Excerpted by permission of Texas Review Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
