Senior managers resign over conflict with doctors

Senior managers at a leading Amsterdam university hospital have resigned after failing to resolve a longstanding conflict between specialist medical staff that, government inspectors believe, could endanger patients’ safety.

The resignations of two thirds of the Amsterdam’s Vrije Universiteit (VU) University Medical Center board—chairman Elmer Mulder and member Wouter van Ewijk—came within days of the Netherlands investigative radio programme Argos reporting that, contrary to the hospital’s claims of harmony, there was still a “hell of a row.”1

The programme revealed documents including a “conflict analysis report” written in May suggesting a serious clash between pulmonary surgeons on one side, and intensive …