posted July 23, 2008
Thank you for publishing my salary. It doesn’t seem like much in comparison to other lists you have posted in the past, but I would like to make a point.
Although I do have to make a living, the money I take home is only part of my compensation. In my position I don’t have direct patient contact, but I am able to greet family members as we pass in the corridors. To smile, say hello and hopefully bring some bit of cheer to their day as they visit friends and family we’re taking care of is a benefit dollars can’t match.
Working with the best clinicians in the city to keep them supplied with state-of-the-art products that help them take better care of our patients is a benefit dollars can’t match. Seeing my staff of dedicated distribution techs deliver state of the art equipment to perform procedures for the first time in the region is a benefit dollars can’t match.
Working for an executive management team that challenges me to operate as efficiently as possible, and who rewards all employees when we are profitable is a benefit dollars can’t match. Utilizing that efficiency to help treat patients who’s uncompensated care tops $80 million is a benefit dollars can’t match.
Knowing when I walk out the door at the end of the day, that lives were saved and treatment given, regardless of a patient’s ability to pay, is a benefit dollars can’t match.
Thanks, as I said earlier for publishing my salary, but the rewards I get for playing a minute part in saving the thousands of lives we save every year are ten-fold greater.
John Doub
Distribution Manager
Erlanger Health System
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I am 'very' disappointed in the article I read today listing ALL of the names, job titles, and salaries for Erlanger's highest-paid employees.
I can understand where there made be a need to make CEO/executive salaries public knowledge, but what you have done goes above and beyond the bounds of tackiness and distaste. You have violated the privacy of every person on that list and have most likely caused complete HR upheaval.
Did the calloused and oh so ignorant individual who thought the article was a good idea ever stop to think of all of the services that these people assist in providing? Erlanger, after all, is an indigent care facility and I am sure that at some point one of your employees or their loved ones have probably received a service from one of those people.
Your news site makes me sick and it is my hope and wish that whoever this individual (or group of individuals) is that they reap what they sow.
Wouldn't it be just dessert for this person or people to have to count on LifeForce or staff in the ER at Erlanger one day and get what they deserve? I can tell you I wouldn't cry over it.
Whoever at the Chattanoogan has it in for Erlanger may want to pull their head out of their a-- and think about that next time.
As for me, I will no longer read 'anything' published by the Chattanoogan and will encourage the 'large' network of people I know to do the same.
Dawn Caldwell
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Wonder was Ms. Caldwell mad when county salaries were posted. It is public record.
She should be upset with these ridiculous salaries.
Denise Morris
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Ms. Caldwell, I am proud to have been part of Chattanoogan.com from the beginning. We live what many newspapers only espouse: “to deliver the news without fear or favor.”
In my 34 years as a journalist, I have worked for three newspapers. One wanted me to dig up dirt on someone, but I refused; another edited graphs out of one of my stories because it was too much, too accurate. Go figure.
Fortunately, most newspapers in America don’t give in to people like you.
As for Erlanger, that is the only area hospital I will go to when I need hospital care. When my life or the life of a loved one is on the line, someone’s salary does not matter.
As for your comment, “I will no longer read 'anything' published by the Chattanoogan and will encourage the 'large' network of people I know to do the same,” I think by now they have a good idea where your head is.
Jim Ashley
Jashley41@comcast.net
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I agree that you have gone way overboard in posting the salaries of those officials at our own hospital here in Hamilton County. Please leave their salaries a personal matter.
I know that information is of public record and those who are intelligent enough to locate that info are the folks who are dedicated enough to vote.
Thanks for your dedication, Erlanger.
Carter Parham
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Do employees of our county and state government or local hospital not have a right to privacy regarding their earnings? If we are electing officials to scrutinize budgets and approve or deny them, do we really need to know what a nurse manager at Erlanger is making?
Does he or she really need to have that published in the event there are leechy family members waiting to hit them up for a loan?
Jeremiah Flagstone
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It absolutely hurt my heart to read the list of published salaries for Erlanger’s management staff. While no longer living and working in Chattanooga, I keep up with my hometown and home hospital. After 29 years in the Erlanger network, I am accustomed to Erlanger, it’s board and executive team being examined and issues aired in public. I also understand some of the reasons for that as a Hospital Authority. The key executives enter a system such as this, or should, with the knowledge that they will be operating under a microscope in a different way than many other facilities…right or wrong, and are at times perceived targets themselves. But, the middle managers are the group that have been and will continue to be working hard behind the scenes for patient-centered care and don’t make the conscious decision to put themselves in the spotlight individually.
If the intent from this publication was to address a dollar amount being spent on management salaries at a local “public institution”, a simple number of those employees and total dollar amount could have sent an overall message. I am curious about what is felt to be gained by listing each hardworking manager and their individual salary in public for comparison to each other, scrutiny by their staff, neighbors, families and others. There is no good that will come of this except opening the opportunity for rifts and divisiveness among a rank of workers who depending on what their current frame of reference is…it may devalue their self worth in what they provide to the institution and the community.
It it was for shock value alone….it worked….I am appalled at how 'low' a few of these salaries are based on the impact of the individual employees to the institution and delivery of safe patient care each and every day.
Caren Lewis, RN, MSHA
Vice President and Chief Nursing Officer
Conway Regional Health System
Conway, Ark.
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I am glad someone finally took notice of how much money Erlanger is spending on ridiculous salaries. I work at Erlanger and have wondered where my raise went. I guess they can't afford to pay the people that really do the work.
This article was posted all over the hospital and management took it down. Maybe they are ashamed?
Erlanger Employee
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I wonder if Ms. Caldwell realizes what the majority of employees at Erlanger make? The rest of the Erlanger employees make a little above minimum wage and I don't know if they feel sorry for the top earners.
They would not mind their salaries aired. I am sure they are outraged since they were told that there will be no raise this year, but bonuses are given to top officials regardless.
Erlanger Employee
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