8. The medical school where Dr. Jones teaches is raising its expectations for clinical faculty to generate practice income. The medical school has multiple missions: educating future physician; researching advancements in medicine; treating patients and funding the first two missions with revenue from patients. Does the medical school have a conflict of interest if one mission, patient revenue, diminishes faculty’s ability to meet other missions?
#	Response Date	Comment
1.	Wed, 3/14/07 12:08 AM	These are different interests, but I don't believe they conflict. If the clinic closed due to financial difficulty no mission could be served. The way in which doctors create patient revenue needs to be monitored so that patients are not abused (in the most general sense); but financial solvency is not at odds with education or research.
2.	Wed, 3/14/07 12:25 AM	why does the med school care about the MD's clinic revenue??? does the school get a %age??
3.	Wed, 3/14/07 2:44 AM	It doesn't so much depend, but we all must acknowledge the unfortunate truth of the matter that funding is needed to run and better medical care and education. If the faculty's ability is/or might be compromised, then a solution should be sought to allow them to refocus on their tasks of teaching, researching and treating while increasing revenue...ie hire another physicia or a PA/NP to increase volume and revenue while allowing physicians to monitor the other missions.
4.	Wed, 3/14/07 4:32 PM	This is a delicate balancing game. Certainly no one person can be expected to fulfill all of these missions by themselves. A medical school is a team effort. If there are minimum requirements for everybody that altogether take up too much time, then one or another will suffer, which leads to suffering of the whole program and the students. People who work in medicine are normally very driven, but it is possible to ask too much of them. They need time to rest too.
5.	Sun, 3/18/07 6:29 PM	It depends on whether the patient revenue is the sole or major source of funding for the other missions, and how the school intends to increase revenue from patients.