IS IT TRUE we urge our readers to read the attached letter from Evansville City Council President. Dr. Dan Adams?  ….we want to thank Dr. Adams for going beyond the call of duty to creating a much needed Petri dish of Team Care instruction at the new IU Med School?

April 27, 2015
Representative Todd Huston
200 W Washington Street
Indianapolis, IN 46204

Dear Representative Huston:

As an adjunct Volunteer Clinical Associate Professor of Surgery at the IU School of Medicine-Evansville (IUMS-E), I am emailing you all to thank you for fully funding, at this point, the IUMS -E component of the downtown expansion of our new campus. The time crunch necessitates that I use an email rather than a formal letter. I beseech you to augment your laudable backing to allow Neu Med’s four-year dream for creating a much needed Petri dish of Team Care instruction to come forth. The concept of having IUMS-E, UE, USI, and Ivy Tech students all working and learning together will reap huge benefits for Indiana’s future health care delivery. Please let me explain.

Having grown up in Boston with a MD Dad and two Irish MD uncles, a nurse Mom and two Irish nurse aunts, a nurse sister, and a US Navy corpsman brother…and having worked in over twenty hospitals during my career as a cardiovascular-thoracic surgeon… I may not know everything, but I do KNOW medicine! There have been great changes in its delivery over that period. The time of the omnipotent MD god has passed and now we are seeking a new paradigm. Team Care allows all those involved in a patient’s well being to bring to his case regimen their equally respected opinions and expertise. This potent collage results in the best of wellness and patient care results. We are trying to inculcate this concept on Day One in both undergraduate and graduate students here on the Downtown Evansville campus.

In my frequent lectures at IUMS-E, I have observed that as early as the second year of medical school, some students are taking on “I am a MD and the rest of you are NOT” attitude. It is our four-year dream to create a new, vibrant, revolutionary Team Care milieu. This way of life will be instituted on the very first day for all the students who step on the campus, regardless of what degree they are pursuing. Without funding, this dream will fall fallow and Team Care will fail to be done in actual practice on the floors of hospitals years later. By then, it may be too late to change concretized behavior.

The Wall Street Journal and many other sources (See Appendix A) extol the virtues of the Team Care concept. If you look at the architectural design of the proposed Nue Med building (See Appendix B), you will see that ALL the students will be purposefully forced to intermingle in the atrium where the two wings meet on the ground floor, in the common library area, and in the Simulation Center on floors above. It is in this last area where so much learning can be attained together. In the Simulation Center, groups made up of medical students, nurse practitioners, physicians assistants, bachelor degree seeking nurses, associate nurses, medical technicians of all specialties, and medical assistants can come together. They will learn how to handle codes of all sorts, start IVs without the pain of early practice, intubate tough airways, and develop the much needed teamwork for every life threatening format.

Where it’s OK to screw up and lose your manikin patient over and over until you get it right. The Team Care group will deal with the full gamut of medical, surgical, ER, OR, Maternity and Pediatric emergencies …just like airline pilot training! The crucial respect and trust for each one’s strengths will be melded. Practice will make perfect. Thus after they graduate, our students will not contribute to the usual, well-documented uptick of a teaching hospital’s July mortality. And yes, patients will get the complete care that they deserve with economic value.

Team Care is the hope of the future of American medicine, delivering total medical care and multi-points of wellness at the lowest cost long-term. We want to brand all the students with its benefits. It is beginning to be taught now in many medical schools, most notable at Harvard, my medical school alma mater, and soon at Indiana. But just having the medical students practice it together is not good enough. Team Care needs to be an integral part of the entire spectrum of the medical care student body, so it becomes their soul’s brand. If USI and Ivy Tech are not there in the Neu Med building in downtown Evansville, it won’t happen.

Please fund USI and Ivy Tech medical building proposal at a level that will sustain their physical presence on our downtown campus. Thus, our dream of making a superb, total Team Care will become a much needed medical practice reality.

Thank you for reading this communication. If you would like to discuss this crucial need with me in more detail, please email me at drhda501@aol.com.

Sincerely yours

H. Dan Adams MD FACS MBA

President of the 2015 Evansville City Council

IS IT TRUE that since the execution of the Johnson Control contract there has been over 13 change orders totaling over $2,000,000 and this does not include the overtime that has been required in the replacement of the meters. . .

IS IT TRUE due to the strange times we live in where our leading Republican in the City is more fiscally and socially liberal than the last three Democrats that held the office of Mayor? …the Democrats in office who have championed Mayor Winnecke’s liberal political agenda, however misguided, are unlikely to have any real opposition in the General Election? …this means that demographics and the lack of a clear political message will most likely will leave the Democrats left standing after the May 5th Primary in the Second, Fourth and Sixth Wards with a clear path to victory in the General Election?

IS IT TRUE the At-Large Democratic Primary, which has four Democrats vying for three seats, is also likely to put the three winners in a great position for victory in November, despite having two qualified opponents on the Republican ticket? …the At-Large race has largely tracked the Mayor’s race, meaning that if a Democrat wins the Mayor’s office, Gail Riecken is likely to take the three At-Large Democrats with her? …in 2011, we saw the Democrat City Clerk pull the most votes city-wide and lead the three Democrats to At-Large victories even though the Mayor’s race was lost.? …political reality is that most Wards in the City are largely Democratic, and city-wide races tend to bring them out? …all the name recognition in the world will not help a Republican At-Large candidate if Democrats have a reason to come out and vote? …it look like this year they will have a reason to come out?

IS IT TRUE like the Mayor and At-Large races, the City Clerk largely attracts Democratic turn-out.?. ..there’s a reason Alberta Matlock ruled that office from 1992 to 2012? …despite the occasional weak Democratic Mayoral candidate, the Democrats can easily rule city-wide races with the will to vote? … in fact, Democrats typically have to turn on their Mayoral candidate for a Republican to take that office, which has happened twice in fairly recent history? …however, it has been some time since Republicans have held the City Clerk or At-Large jobs? …whether it’s an issue that these candidates don’t typically get enough press to turn off Democrats or Democrats feel bad about occasionally voting for a Republican Mayor, the winners of the City Clerk and At-Large primaries are likely to take an oath on January 1, 2016?

IS IT TRUE you need to take time and go to our Tri-State Voices TV Show posted in todays City County Observer video section? This weeks program features City Councilwoman Stephanie Brinkerhoff-Riley giving us an extremely investing presentation a the looming city debt facing the taxpayers of this community? … we agree with Brinkerhoff-Riley statement that professional services contracts should be bid out? …if this happens the taxpayers would save millions of dollars every year?