THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 18, 1994 TAG: 9406180219
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DIANE TENNANT AND ELIZABETH SIMPSON, STAFF WRITERS
DATELINE: 940618 LENGTH: NORFOLK
In what EVMS president Edward E. Brickell described as ``an involuntary termination,'' Dr. Paula L. Stillman was told Friday that she would be replaced by Dr. Jock R. Wheeler, professor and chairman of surgery at the school.
{REST} Brickell said Stillman, who was one of three women nationwide to serve as dean of a medical school, has been offered a position at EVMS as full-time professor of pediatrics and internal medicine. She has not yet told the school whether she intends to take the position.
Brickell would not discuss why Stillman was terminated as dean after such a short tenure, saying it was a personnel matter.
Stillman, a former pediatrics professor from the University of Massachusetts Medical School, was selected as the school's first female dean last June after a national search. But the enthusiasm that surrounded the appointment did not last.
``I do not know that it was a mistake,'' Brickell said about last year's decision to hire Stillman. ``Things just didn't work out.
Others connected with the private, community-based medical school traced the problems to the January arrival of Stillman's husband, Dr. Alfred Stillman, a gastroenterologist.
Six administrators speaking anonymously out of concern for a possible lawsuit said differences arose about her efforts to get him on staff and the salary he was to be paid.
Stillman declined to comment Friday, except to term as ``absolutely untrue'' any suggestions that she had acted inappropriately on her husband's behalf.
One of Stillman's goals when she arrived last year was to place more emphasis on training generalist medical doctors instead of specialists, as called for in health care reform. Brickell said the school will forge ahead with that goal.
Wheeler, a vascular surgeon, will take over as dean and provost June 27. He has been chairman of surgery since February and served as a volunteer community faculty member in the EVMS Department of Surgery for 20 years.
Wheeler, a member of the Norfolk Surgical Group since 1968, established a vascular research program and founded the Kidney Transplant Program for EVMS, Sentara Norfolk General Hospital and Children's Hospital of The King's Daughters. He is a Hampton native.
Brickell said the school's Council of Chairmen passed a resolution Friday supporting his decision to replace Stillman. Still, he said the weeks-long discussion with Stillman about her position and his ultimate decision to terminate her as dean were not easy.
``It's always difficult,'' he said. ``You do not take these things lightly.''
by CNB