Submitter: Edward D. Frohlich | efrohlich@ochsner.org
Ochsner Clinic Foundation
Published January 4, 2006
This is in response to the article concerning displaced researchers from New Orleans. I particularly appreciated Nick Basan’s comments and those from a former house staff member from our institution detailing the tremendous turmoil that so many of our colleagues from New Orleans experienced following the recent hurricanes Katrina and Rita and the ensuing flooding (1).
I do not diminish in any way the unimaginable travails that were encountered by my New Orleans friends and colleagues from Tulane and Louisiana State Universities; my family and many others lost homes and belongings from this catastrophic event (2). However, I want to point out that within two-to-three weeks our research program at the Ochsner Clinic Foundation was back on its feet and productive. Indeed, we were able to take in several research teams into our research laboratories so that they remained able to maintain their research productivity. Indeed, ours was the only academic institution in the New Orleans area that was able to fulfill its clinical as well as investigative commitments in our hospitals, clinics and satellites throughout the area.
My concern which prompts me to respond is that because of the widespread publicity detailing this horrible event, an unwarranted conclusion was made by the media and other reporters that all of the investigators and clinicians in our community were forced into the associated academic diaspora detailed in the Journal’s report (1).
The fact of the matter is that we were able to maintain even the most complex medical procedures and, additionally, fulfilled all of the proscribed commitments necessary to maintain our experimental work as well as all of the regulatory conditions necessary for clinical studies. Furthermore, our housestaff certainly had a unique opportunity, to say the very least, to broaden their clinical experiences working under very severe disaster conditions.
For these reasons I was prompted to provide this response in order to clear a tremendously erroneous impression that all academic medical activities fled the New Orleans area. This impression has not served our situation well since the impression has been conveyed that the Ochsner Clinic Foundation was not recruiting staff and house staff due to the efflux of faculty from the other two academic institutions. Nothing can be further from the truth. Our full-time staff of clinical and investigative professionals continue to work with their expanding clinical, teaching, and research activities. We have facilities for our house staff for near- by housing. And our large multispecialty medical clinic staff continues to fulfill their academic responsibilities.
REFERENCES
1. Bloom S: Displaced docs and researchers ride out the storm. J. Clin. Invest. 2005, 115: 2958-2959.
2. Frohlich ED: Hurricane Katrina: Aftershocks (essay). The New Engl. J. Med. 2005, 353