Prior to McGee's arrival at the institute, ethicist Robert Baker headed a bioethics masters program at Union College jointly run with Wayne Shelton at the Albany Medical College. A.M.C.'s own ethics unit, the Center for Medical Ethics, Education & Research, was founded in 1994 by John Balint, an A.M.C. physician and researcher who had just returned from an ethics fellowship at the University of Chicago. He no longer led the program, but the university provided funds for a new director, who would be named to the "John A. Balint Endowed Chair in Medical Ethics."
When Baker contacted McGee, the latter had just suffered a professional blow: He had been denied tenure at the University of Pennsylvania, home to one of the nation's most prestigious ethics programs. Eager to move on, he packed up and headed to Albany to be director. Soon after he got there, he persuaded the administration to change the center's name of to the New York Bioethics Institute, boosted its Web presence, and began developing relationships with faculty at the Albany Law School and other colleges in the region as he had vowed to do. A.M.C.'s Shelton soon vacated his office in the center and moved to a nearby building. (Both he and Balint declined to comment for this article.)
"Glenn got here and everyone was really excited," says Alicia Ouellette, an Albany Law School ethicist and lawyer who once directed AMBI's health law and bioethics program. "We were told, 'This is a star.' He's got a lot of energy, a lot of ideas, and he seemed to bring with him all kinds of resources." Ethicist Sean Philpott, who worked closely with McGee until February 2007 when he stepped down as AMBI's associate director, describes his former colleague as "intently driven," noting that when Philpott first arrived, McGee would sometimes burn the midnight oil.
But according to interviews with a number of former colleagues, McGee also began ruffling feathers almost as soon as he set foot in Albany. Just months after his arrival, he was denounced by editors at the Albany Law Review after they learned that he had apparently forged the signatures of his three co-authors on forms for a paper that he had submitted for publication. The paper was about whether in vitro fertilization attracts parents who wish to genetically engineer their children. Peter Ubel, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, says that he and Andrea Gurmankin, a former Penn graduate student once advised by McGee, told McGee that they did not feel the manuscript was worthy of publication. "There was a kernel of a good idea in there," Ubel said during a recent interview, but "some terrible flaws in the survey data."
McGee, however, ignored their objections: Without their knowledge, he signed their names as well as that of another author (Elizabeth Banger, now a U.S. Army lawyer) on forms granting the journal the right to print it. After it was published, Ubel demanded that the journal issue a correction. The publication eventually removed his and Gurmankin's names from electronic versions and published a correction in the following issue. McGee says he believed that he had "proxy" to sign the other names, and both he and Ubel say the incident may have resulted from miscommunication.
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33 Comments
Add CommentNot a pretty picture. Hubris fells another giant.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI know that ethics is very important in life, at least to me and presumably to many others. The relations between human beings on this planet has been consistently adversarial and/or irrationally hostile throughout human history. This says a lot about how we behave as human animals despite the various facades of institutionalized moral authority.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSome of this is so obvious as to need few examples to paint the picture, e.g., the extermination of out-groups under the superficial grounds of religious authority or humanitarian eugenics. Other ethical issues are more subtle, if only because relatively few among the general public ponder these things. There are many mundane examples of great importance to the lives of rather ordinary human beings, I am sure (e.g., drug testing in developing countries; organ harvesting from the poor or from condemned prisoners; various issues of informed consent, and so on). One of the more bizarre but rarely seen debates concerns what some people call adult gender reassignment, and what their opponents call surgical aid to genital mutilation. No matter what the ethics are, it seems to come down to the simple fact that if you can supply the cash, you can find some surgeon who will gladly perform the services requested.
When I read of this relatively wealthy individual (at least relative to my position) and the controversy arising from rather obvious unethical behavior I am reminded that one cannot rely on institutional authority to determine right from wrong. It appears that a man who has far more than enough resources to sustain himself and prosper was compelled to put ethics in second place to egocentric thinking.
Penngirl states, [i]"Glenn, like all things Texas, is a professor who is larger than life."[/i] Whatever one thinks of the man after having been one of his students, [i]larger than life[/i] is meaningless rhetoric. It neither applies to any human being nor to Texas. I think the same sort of rhetoric would more likely come from a member of a celebrity fan club, or a cult of personality.
I have a motto, "If you want a better world, you must be a better person." I would hope this article would inspire readers to consider improving their own ethical thinking as a part of education in critical thinking, rather than waiting for a celebrated professor of ethics to tell them what to think.
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Edited by Bradley at 06/23/2008 9:54 PM
Whenever you hear someone proclaim: I am an ethicist, cringe, because they already have an ethical issue: The desire for self-aggrandizement.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt never fails to amaze me how often supposedly intelligent people continue to think that imperfect beings can arrive at perfect solutions.
This is emblematic of the false discipline of contemporary bioethics. It has been distilled into baseless celebrity commentary on subject matter the ethicist possesses no experience in. Your publication indulged such nonsense and bears responsibility. His sponsoring institution coveted this baseless celebrity and would continue to do so had it not been for his programmed failure.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHey, this is breaking news. Really liked the article. What do you think that is going to happen with McGee after this? They'll still pay him to teach ethics?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSeems like there is still more to the story. I wonder what really happened. Are any of these ethical failings severe enough to lead to the removal of a guy who was a mover and shaker in the world of bioethics?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStill, great reporting by Scientific American. This article offers a much clearer picture than the first article where McGee acted like he just wasn't cut out to 'push paper'.
Why is it that medical ethics as a professional discipline has become almost completely removed from the discipline of analytic philosophy in general? Most of us in analytic philosophy have no idea what is going on in medical ethics, for instance I have never heard of this guy before, and I am a professor of philosophy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a freelance journalist, I'll say I have the utmost respect for SciAm. As a friend and former student of Glenn's, I'll say that he is in my experience a consummate professional. Independent of these relationships, I would point out that a number of the things discussed here are (a) unconfirmed, and (b) the sort of behavior that goes on every day in academic departments across the country. There are plenty of people who've inflated their self-image on a CV, gotten involved with a co-worker, or told others about a job offer that was never made official. And yet, most days, this is the mundane stuff of water cooler discussion at the office. I can't help but feel that it's a bit harsh that it's elevated here to the level of investigative journalism. All my experience has led me to believe that Glenn is, in the end, a good and generous person. And I both hope and expect that he will eventually "land on his feet."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this--
Edited by Josh Braun at 06/21/2008 5:29 AM
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Edited by Josh Braun at 06/21/2008 5:32 AM
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Edited by Josh Braun at 06/21/2008 5:33 AM
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Edited by Josh Braun at 06/21/2008 5:33 AM
What is the point of this article? Why is SciAm retailing gossip about an academic and omitting almost entirely his ideas? Sorry, but this is a disgrace.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have to disagree with BioEdge. The article helps to explain the tragic downfall of someone who held himself out as one of the world's most renowned ethicists, teaches lessons about professionalism, and gives to those of us left damaged by the aftermath of Dr. McGee's self-destruction some sense of what happened. Without question, Dr. McGee inspired us. He built within our community a thriving, exciting bioethics center around which we had hope and anticipation. Many people - new and established academics, graduate students, undergrads - moved their families, turned down other opportunities, and gave up good jobs to come to Albany to work with Dr. McGee. Even before the article was published, these folks were reeling.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen it turned out that promises made by Dr. McGee to lure them to Albany were no more meaningful than his claim that he was Chief of Bioethics for New York State, they found their careers in shambles. Others are writing embarrassing letters to potential employers explaining that the AMBI appointments they listed on resumes or cvs existed only in Dr. McGee's mind, but were never recognized by Albany Medical Center.
AMC is equally reeling. This is an institution that invested hundreds and thousands of dollars in Dr. McGee and his Institute. It had nothing to gain, and everything to lose by firing Dr. McGee. AMC is now embroiled in scandal and speculation. Dr. McGee is suing the medical college. The dean and vice dean of the medical school are running a graduate program that has been abandoned by its director of graduate studies. AMC is a good place and the people there seem to have given Dr. McGee chance after chance to clean up his act and live up to his promise. For whatever reason, he failed to do so and continued in the pattern of petty and major transgressions only partially revealed by Sci. Amer.
The article is not spreading mere gossip. It is telling a morality story that should give pause to all academics in power. It is a story of power abused to no end. What's missing from the story is not an ode to Dr. McGee's ideas. That part of the story is readily available and frequently told. What's missing from the article is the telling of effects of abuse of power and disregard for truth on the people affected by this tragic figure. With time, maybe those who are offended by the article will understand how many people were hurt by what happened in Albany and why the story needed to be told. Maybe they will do everything in their power to stop the story from repeating itself elsewhere. Maybe also, and this I hope most especially, Dr. McGee will learn from this episode so that he can go on to do the great work that his genius clearly allows.
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Edited by six blocks at 06/23/2008 6:24 AM
Now this is an interesting comment: "Others are writing embarrassing letters to potential employers explaining that the AMBI appointments they listed on resumes or cvs existed only in Dr. McGee's mind, but were never recognized by Albany Medical Center. " How do you work a job that only exists in McGee's mind? Do you get paid for it? Clearly there is more to this story than is being revealed here.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile I believe there is great value in writing about whistle blowing and proper submission of pieces to journals, I find an article like "an unethical ethicist?" to border precariously on yellow journalism. What purpose could this "article" serve the SCIAM readers? Some have argued it is a cautionary tale. I feel that airing out the unconfirmed, extremely personal, dirty laundry of an individual who has published over 50 well-regarded bioethics pieces (taken from PubMed, not his CV) is unprofessional. It begs one to ask why Mr. Borrell would write such a scathing article that is more reminiscent of something that would show up on Page 6 than in the pages of a reputable magazine or journal. Who appears "to crave the spotlight" now? So SCIAM, please keep your articles scientific and leave the gossip for the water coolers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would also like to disclose that I was a previous student of Dr. McGee's. The reason why I went into the field of Bioethics was because of a course I took with him.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGlenn, like all things Texas, is a professor who is larger than life. To say that Glenn's number one concern was a chance at the limelight and that he would take it at any cost is just not true. As a professor, he would bend over backwards for his students. He would always take time out of his busy schedule to mentor both the undergrads and the graduate students at Penn. I cannot speak towards his actions while at AMBI, but I can at least tell you from my personal experiences at Penn, that he is a brilliant, driven, kind-hearted man. While he may incorrectly tell you that you are going to make it to the stars, you will at least make it to the moon with his help. His refreshing, can-do, supportive attitude can go a long way. I can also see how that same effervescence could be misconstrued as inappropriate hyperbole by those who do not know Glenn well.
Yes, he did hurt a lot of people, some of them my good friends. The article doesn't disclose the half the sh** he pulled and the people he hurt, including people he ticked off at Penn, which is why he was denied tenure there. I'm sure more will come out in the weeks and months to come.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wonder if Ms. Johnson is actually in love with Glenn or if she is a gold digger and just loves his fame/infamy. "Unethical ethicist" may be a title that suits her. It seems that "immature ethicist" may also identify her. I hope Glenn doesn't have another romance that sinks to the river bottom.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHmm. Where's that comment I posted about Borrell's tapes, errors, and other gross negligence in reporting? Afraid to post that? Something tells me that if you won't post it, another first tier science magazine will. The down side of posting a hatchet job full of errors that would easily have been "felled" by a fact check is that like, well, the hyperbole of a Texan, it's not hard to detect. So, Ivan, where's my comment?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRepost: Speaking as an editor I can testify that occasionally a story is so full of errors that even if I were a "public figure," (a stretch) the failure to do fact checking of a reporter who said he had tapes of every interview is gross negligence. The "unethical ethicist" is disheartening, easy irony. I hope sciam.com readers expect SOME sort of claim about the ethics of ethicists to undergird a hatchet job on the life of an ethics professor, particularly given that the narrative about me is rife with what Borrell knew was untrue or distortion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe website ran in tiny print (after a week) my correction of their obvious error, the attribution of my success to Human Cloning Debate, neither my "first book" nor authored by me (edited)...which they said appeared alongside the birth of Dolly...in 1998? Wait - I forgot - this isn't a science magazine. Maybe Dolly wasn't born in February of 2007. Somebody tell Ian Wilmut though.
The theme here is simple. Taping every interview, Borrell was given latitude to tell a fish story, and sciam.com's new editor, who doesn't reveal that he was my editor for more than a year at The Scientist (where I often challenged his judgment) chose as "Editor's Choice" for days an article with errors numbering in the dozens. Let's stick to the stupid, uncontroverted ones for now: I do not have two iPhones. No faculty member of AMBI accused me of forgery, nor the journal. Vincent Bonventre, busy with ethics issues of his own, never returned my calls or emails. I did not say to any reporter that I was "Socrates with a Beeper," and told Brendan clearly that I've written in an article against that concept itself; I gave him the citation. bioethics.net is not the blog for The American Journal of Bioethics. AJOB was co-founded in 1999, not 2001, and three scholars (not two). Sorry Paul. No one in bioethics EVER described AJOB as "trendy." The study of citations by AJOB editors never happened. I never said there are two journals in bioethics; I serve on editorial boards for ten. There is a metric for influence of bioethics journals, by ISI, and AJOB is 100% more oft cited than Borrell's choice [2007 JCI]. And that's page one of Brendan's piece.
The University didn't fund the Balint chair, donors did. The name NY Inst of Bioethics was suggested to me by Dr. Sturman, director of the NYSDOH Wadsworth Center, who appointed me chief of the office of bioethics after first suggesting that I not take the Albany Med job and that I work for him instead. He went WITH me to get my badge and set up an office.
Continuing from the below. Just easy facts not checked. Wayne Shelton moved when I created for him his own program to do health services research, named him director, and co-authored significant portions of two grants to fund it. He didn't move because I angered him but because I moved him to put him next to the unit he studied. Contrary to Borrell's implication he said he did not want to move in email. This wasn't a performance issue or rejection of my directorship and Borrell knows that the implication is simply false. When actual concerns WERE raised about faculty, I was told that decisions about non-renewal of faculty were mine to make, then told they were not, then that they were, then that they were not.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe paper mentioned from the law review was not a new submission halted because of bad data, it had been submitted previously to a medical journal, and I submitted it at the request of the law journal, after first asking permission of my three co-authors, who have been crystal clear about the confusion in the submission process. I'm sorry Mr. Borrell is unfamiliar with how confusion arises in cases like this, but it is egregious that he fails to note that concerns about data analysis were not raised during this submission process, that I lecture about how this paper is a great example of problems that can only be avoided by thinking in a different way about authorship (which I noted in Science [NextWave] in a piece about whether it takes a village to author an article), or that I have noted this kind of confusion elsewhere including in my work about the Korean stem cell debacle. Borrell just twists the truth beyond recognition. Or, um, Ivan, how about you survey PI/senior authors about how they handle permissions forms where there is prior submission and they believe all authors to be in agreement with resubmission. A screwup - for sure - isn't "an unethical ethicist commits forgery by claiming 'proxy.'" Or maybe it is. You judge. But keep in mind what I said to Borrell on tape ten times: only a total moron would think he could hide unintended authorship of an indexed publication.
I have no comments on the kind words by Alicia Ouellette or Sean Philpott about midnight oil or what people "were told" about my arrival. I'm happy though to say that I have dozens of emails from both acclaiming my leadership and emails from each asking me not to leave, each written long after Borrell asserts that faculty were running in terror or anger.
Borrell asserts that my CV is padded. Just asserts. No substantiation...
Continuing with easy errors. I told Borrell on tape, contra his broad claim about my affect as a journal editor, that I have several times and in particular to the editor and to the director of the Hastings Center complimented their journal as the best writing in bioethics. If you fact check you cannot confuse my intent. He twists, to make the point he wants to make, statements to the effect that 'naturally there would be competition', or that 'I knew I would make enemies', but the tape will show that those two comments were in reference to a set of discussions about an event involving our two journals and the American Society for Bioethics and the Humanities, which for a brief period entertained the notion - to the point of a contract written and practically signed without the knowledge of the ASBH membership or of journal editors - of a special, exclusive relationship between Hastings and ASBH. Editors of a number of journals, led by myself, and other leaders in bioethics, objected, Hastings' contract was scrapped, and a new system for journals and the bioethics organization was developed. That fracas is long past and my discussion of it was more than put in context - but Brendan ignores the whole matter because it doesn't fit the portrait.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBerrell is in his element when he makes the truth look like a lie or vice versa. For example, he is unable to write that I did not hold the position of chief of bioethics for the Wadsworth Center of NYSDOH, a role which Wadsworth's director, Dr. Lawrence Sturman (unquoted, of course), conceived of, with a title Sturman himself signed off on, before helping me set up an office and accompanying me to speed the process of getting my ID, etc., so I could advance bioethics at Wadsworth. It goes without saying that there were great ambitions for this novel role. I said (but was not quoted) that Sturman told me not to go to Albany Med, because it would be much more prestigious to work for Wadsworth instead. But I didn't take such a role, nor did I say that the role I eventually took was paid. Nor is that relevant at all. In fact I would never have accepted payment from the state government to serve as bioethics shepherd in its state labs. I tell Brendan (check the tape, Ivan) that it would be dispositive to see my ID, but that I did not have time before PICKING UP MY KIDS to get it. He loves that quote. He frosts it with the most idiotic press release ever, from NYDOH, saying I "gave myself the lofty title" but was a volunteer. With an ego. But Ivan, where's the "he wasn't" tape?
Continuing with easy errors [all my posts are in reverse order here due to the posting system]. Not only does Borrell not demonstrate that Wadsworth does not remember this role, which he could easily have verified, and opt instead even after I plead with him to speak to Larry Sturman, who at this point would need to be deposed in a libel case, as so many things ride on what he said to me in front of others or in email. Nope. That would have required due diligence. Fact checking. So Borrell twists a press release to make it look ALMOST like I did not hold a title (though the press release doesn't say that) and like I wanted a title, not sought to build a role. Borrell ignores entirely the whole POINT of the Alden March Bioethics Institute where that role is concerned, in fact, which was to build the first highly states-focused bioethics research program. Again, that wouldn't have fit the portrait. Borrell implies that I created a fiction concerning confusion that occurred, and subsequent anger, when the state government didn't like it that I was "off message" on Terri Schiavo. He does so by quoting this PR guy from NYSDOH, who says that state officials have no record of the meeting in which I was reprimanded for what was essentially Sturman's fault, namely speaking on Schiavo as the director of the New York Institute for Bioethics (AMBI's original name, coined by Sturman...), because people confused the name of the institute with the state government. Sturman was also motivated by the fact that, as he put it to me, a very angry Tia Powell, head of the Task Force on Life and the Law in NYC, part of DOH, had faxed him some news coverage of me and said to him that "if there is" - and this is a quote - "a bioethicist to the department of health, it is me, not McGee." Sturman left me swinging in the wind, including at the meeting the PR guy doesn't recall, at which were attending: Don Parens, Dennis Whalen, Sturman, myself, and - guess who - the PR GUY. I worked with my Dean to rename the institute to alleviate pressure on Sturman, but Powell had already poisoned the nascent Office of Bioethics because, as Sturman put it, she would have had to be in Albany a great deal more, and while she had volunteered to do that, she hadn't followed through more than twice. Or so he said. He said ride out the storm. I don't think he had Brendan in mind, and in the meantime the Office essentially atrophied as other Institute priorities took their place. Where's the exaggeration, Brendan? Where's the tape, Ivan?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisContinuing with the simple fact check errors. There are a number. Borrell claims that I represented that I had job offers that I did not have. This one is simple. I said I turned down an offer from the Congressional Research Service, Congress' research arm in the Library of Congress. Borrell really drilled on this one. "So it wasn't the whole library," he said. I loved that. No, Brendan, I was not offered the job nor said to anybody I was offered the job of being bioethicist to the robots in the stacks. The job, offered by Royal Shipp, head of CRS' relevant division, who could EASILY have been fact checked, was for what is easily the best division of the Library, and was highly competitive, and was in fact not "congressional bioresearch ethicist," or at least not by my quotation. Tape, anyone? Borrell, who didn't bother to find out what CRS is, just pretends that I've inflated the job. He does something very similar with an outstanding peer of mine in the field, Mark Hall at Wake Forest, whose medical school dean did in fact ask me to come work in the institution, which had been, according to the external committee it convened 18 months or so before, been looking "for a Glenn McGee." The person who let them know I was leaving Penn said, with levity (God forbid), "well, one is available." I did in fact get to the negotiating stage on every aspect of a position at Wake Forest and Mark says nothing to the contrary; in fact both in email and phone he and I, and the Dean and I moreover, reach a point at which I finally must decide whether to take an endowed chair and directorship in hand at Albany or give Wake a couple more days to get their offer together. I withdraw, reluctantly, and nobody disagrees that this is what happened. Listen to Borrell's spin. It's amazing: Wake "did not make any offers or fill any positions that year." Anybody here understand anything at all about academia? I was clear with Borrell that I did not have a paper offer from Wake for the reasons just outlined. Look what he does with it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe worst example is Emory. I was told quite clearly that I was the leading candidate for a position Borrell says didn't exist ("was never in the offing"). Ok, a weird use of the word "offing." But the real issue, Editor, is sanctioning Borrell's implication that my having said to Steinbock that I'd turned down Emory is inconsistent with Emory's Provost having said "McGee withdrew from consideration in advance of any final decision being made." My [private] email was misleading? Tell it to my #2 iPhone
More fact check errors. Still in reverse order and apologies for the boring replies and for the confusing nature of replying in reverse. Borrell lies when he says that I state on tape that the reason for my statements about Emory were that I had been in discussions with Emory for a long time. In fact I have been OFFERED positions at Emory twice, though neither materialized in my moving, despite my love of Emory. Once I was unable to make the move because Emory had to hire (its Dean reported at the 11th hour) four new cardiologists, which left no money to cover any staff support for me or my journal, and once because the funding for the endowed chair that I was hoping to take did not materialize within the 6 months promised by then Ethics director James Fowler. Fact checking Emory's current ethics center faculty, whom I've known, um, forever, and whom I named to Brendan (check the tape...) would have validated that I have been interviewed for positions at Emory - and selected as the focal candidate for jobs (in excess of those two) that never quite materialized - another two times. The second job offer I mention above resulted in a major promotion for me at Penn, in fact.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBorrell hacks away. Having established he thinks that I exaggerated, he turns to say that the reporter at the Albany Business review, which quoted me on those job offers in an article about how I represented the new wave of intellectual talent poring into Albany (irony, anyone?), stands by his story. Well good. His story was right. But for Brendan, this is another clever way to make it appear I exaggerated.
I will not dignify Steinbock's comments about whether or not she received the Ob-Gyn appointment I sought for her quickly, or whether it appeared too quickly on the website, with a reply. I was disheartened Bonnie decided to forward my emails.
You may have noticed at this point that Brendan isn't the most trenchant reporter where the underlying question is concerned. Satisfied that I'm egregiously prone to exaggeration, on the basis of his egregious exaggeration, Borrell tears away deeper and deeper at my character, and asks nothing - to the point that his omission itself bears investigation - about the motivation of anyone involved in the sudden, inexplicable dismissal of a guy (me) working in bioethics who just weeks before was named by the Chamber of Commerce alongside the governor and president of RPI as one of the ten most influential people in the Albany area.
But wait there IS a reason. A woman! Maybe women plural! Sex scandal!
Borrell simply fails in every way to get correct the information about the graduate programs. Not at present affiliated with the AMBI masters, but having designed it with Dr. Johnson, and having run the institute during the past three years, I can tell you that the claim Borrell makes regarding the outcome of the negotiations concerning the masters' programs is false on the math and flat out biased on the "personality." His numbers are woefully wrong. When the programs broke apart, which neither Bob Baker nor I wanted, state law required a "teach out" allowing students to stay with the existing program or move to a new one. I'm sure Bob is candid when he says 27 went to Union's program. Three came to AMBI. Then AMBI exploded in growth. At the close of 2008, barring some dramatic change, it will easily be the largest online (and perhaps, generally) bioethics graduate program. Its applicant pool is easily ten times what the previous program saw in terms of quantity and quality, and the biggest problem was hiring faculty. In the past months the administration finally approved several new slots. What Brendan either didn't care to research or flat out concealed is that the effect of the AMBI success on the competitor program was enormous. In the law school, where Ouellette is quoted on the non-"necessity" of the split, and little is made of the fact that she cast her lot with the Union group shortly before Albany Law's health law students started coming (particularly the top ones) to AMBI. My role in developing the health law & bioethics program at ALS, which Ouellette describes in an email as "the single most exciting thing to happen in the law school since [she]'d been there", suddenly became a liability.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe actual numbers in the Union program aren't known to me. I have only a shadow of a sense of how badly they were hurt by their administration's decision that either it would make 75% plus of the revenue for the masters program, or they would ditch us. But it is clear to everyone with whom I have spoken that the existence of AMBI - which Borrell of course doesn't even DESCRIBE, neither my innovations with iTunes, nor our radically new curriculum, nor the mentor-mentee/everyone must publish program - was crushing Union.
Lo and behold, about two weeks after a conference held at Union, there is a sudden meeting of the minds between three people formerly affiliated with AMBI concerning how they were treated a year ago. A complaint made, an interview held, and I am told point blank (on tape) that I'm cleared...until
Until...and this is where Borrell takes off his scientist costume and becomes a gossip columnist...suddenly I am called in to discuss the fact that I will no longer serve as the director of the institute. The reasons given have been discussed in the media. But Borrell, quotes an "informant," which OBVIOUSLY SHOULD have been checked for conflict of interest, who appeared at AMC to say that I had a relationship with Dr. Johnson that was inappropriate and detrimental to the Masters Program. Heaven help you, Ivan, when the libel attorney explains that it is now known that this "informant" turns out to also on the same day, a couple weeks after the conference at Union, to have been claiming that I had acted inappropriately toward her and others ... planning to put the medical center in a position where it would have to nuke me or defend me against multiple "potential plaintiffs," two of whom have direct relationships with - you guessed it - a competitive program.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt gets so much worse. Brendan's failure to investigate sources or conflicts and sciam.com's failure to fact check goes to this depth. I indicated to Brendan multiple times that I had been told specifically that I was in compliance with policy in my relationships - my personal relationships - and in fact I indicated to him that I had that on tape from the highest level person to whom I reported. Dr. Johnson was congratulated on her 'fit' with me, offered a $35,000 plus raise would she stay on with Albany Med in spite of my departure, and most importantly was told -- and told Brendan on tape -- that she was told specifically that there was no problem with our relationship; it had been disclosed according to Albany Med policy; disclosed to the head of HR. To hell with policy: at no point did I have a relationship with anyone that violated any professional standard with regard to conflicts of interest such as evaluation or special treatment etc. As for last straws, well, Brendan just made that up. Of whole cloth. Prove he didn't.
One last part infuriates me. Long before there was any relationship between myself and Dr. Johnson, whom your commentator below calls a "gold digger" (for quitting a $100K plus position rather than lie to students about the effect of the changes in the program? wouldn't that be gold dropper??), there is her hiring. Brendan gets several copies of email of my "rushing" Johnson into the job. But he doesn't interview the committee. Nor does he quote - most important - Dr. Ouellette agreeing to the ultimate solution whole heartedly.
Really? Easy to claim from an unnecessarily anonymous position. I guess you'd recommend that ethicists start out by being open to respond to charges like this from people with such integrity as you obviously have, standing up to make these charges with your name on the post.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisApologies for the confusion in my comments. It is simply a matter of length restriction. All of my posts from 8:36PM on July 4 to 1:50AM on July 5 should be read in chronological order, essentially scrolling up instead of down. Again sorry for the confusion. Ultimately, this is hardly the place for a response to an article that reaches the level of libel by "page" two, but given the number of anonymous posters here who keep referring to "more to come out in the weeks and months to come" and other untold horrors, it seems like it is time to put out this fire. I've been paying for Brendan's lies for weeks now, though ultimately all he does is act as the mule for those who extorted Albany Med, did everything they could to "leave a body" once they pulled out the knives on me, and did so for reasons that defy logic. So many people in the field are asking why a small group of those whom I worked with, helped in many ways, and never betrayed have suddenly become part of a smear campaign that literally aims to obliterate my scholarly work and replace it with a gossip column. The answer is ugly and sad: because they wanted money, because their competitive program was getting crushed, or because I did something to offend them at some point when they had expected me to be more supportive. In any event, Scientific American isn't the place - nor an unknown science writer turned gossip columnist the person - one would have expected to see this discussed. And the total lack of subtlety mixed with the gross negligence bordering (if not crossing) the border of malice in libel that is present in the writing and fact checking of this piece - it stuns not just me but others, even if only because they came to the website to read about cosmology, BGH or Asian Moths, not the private life of a professor.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs someone who knows Dr. Johnson, I take great offense to the suggestion that she is a "gold-digger", "unethical", or "immature". Anyone who actually knows anything at all about her knows that these are three of the last terms one should ever use to characterize her.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisObviously, people can and will think whatever it is they want to think about others. I would urge people, though, to take a moment to consider what they 'think' they know about a person vs. what they 'actually' know about a person before publicly posting such hurtful statements about their character.
I, for one, consider myself lucky to be able to call Dr. Johnson a colleague...and honored to be able to call her my friend.
If you knew anything at all about her, then you would agree.
I note there are no corrections, and is no retraction, from web Managing Editor Oranski or the venerable editor of Scientific American, John Rennie, whom I doubt was given a copy of the allegations of dozens of unchecked basic errors I've made about a story to which his magazine is about to publish a follow up - by the same author. I didn't even address the broader contextual errors or take any real time to discuss the conflicts of interest vitally relevant to the key sources for this article, matters of interest I am SURE to John Rennie and SciAm's readers. I take it that at some point sciam.com will be replying to the dozen times I make requests for tape verification of false quotes. But the web site's waiting - when Ivan is online responding to me and clearly available - until SciAm posts its next story, while leaving this story as "Editor's Choice," is a choice, and a malicious one at that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy? Brendan has made it clear to me - in message after message, the first claiming he wanted to talk to me about my future plans, the second asking me to comment on "a story about lawsuits against Albany Med," the third asking me to comment on new issues, and the fourth giving me an ominous deadline to offer comment on his 'new information'. I'm sure it was no problem, given the promise of a half-dozen anonymous commenters that there was "so much more that will come out in the weeks and months to come," to find something to write for the tiny audience of readers of the nation's leading science magazine who would care about my life. Even in the absence of a claim by Borrell about how the deepest scut he could conjecture about my life bears on my role as an academic studying and writing about ethics, Borrell and Oranski could put together a story to "follow up" - but nobody would care unless SciAm.com continued hyping this story - with all its errors - for days as "Editor's Choice" prior to the next installment.
At this point though I doubt Scientific American will be doing the investigation of those errors. I know I'm not counting on that.
This article reads like a wacky gossip column. Some of the allegations against McGee seem mystifying...i.e. how would Emory as an institution have a memory of jobs offered but not taken?? Wouldn't you have to dig out the people involved? What if they were informally offered?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thissome of these items seem like crap from jealous colleagues
I stopped reading on page 3, but if the point of this article is "Glenn McGee" has hubris, it didn't deserve publishing here, maybe on page six of the NY Post.
Given that all of the photos on that flickr account appear to be licenced for non-commerical use only, it seems surprising that sciam (erhm, a commercial enterprise, yes?) would use it to illustrate an article about ethics...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo McGee is still the Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Bioethics -- is that a for-profit operation?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo McGee is still the Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Bioethics -- is that a for-profit operation?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs it true Glenn McGee is working for RNL Bio Europe?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnyone can confirm?