Opinion | Deal between Fairview, U doctors is hopeful progress

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While I was enthusiastic to read that the University of Minnesota Medical School’s physicians will continue to have a relationship with Fairview Health Services, I am concerned that the current U administration is displaying such a visceral reaction to this first step toward a renewed relationship with the Fairview Health System (“U of M blasts new Fairview deal with U doctors as ‘hostile takeover’,” Nov. 12).

From Wednesday’s article, it’s clear this is a creative start to ensure a continued partnership allowing U physicians to continue seeing patients at the University of Minnesota Medical Center. This progress is long overdue. So why the university isn’t eagerly coming to the table to help finalize the agreements, as requested by the state’s attorney general, is puzzling to me.

In early 2023, I wrote in alarm at the concept of an out-of-state system owning the health system where the clinical work of the U faculty is done via an acquisition of the primary clinical partner, Fairview. When that deal fell through, I had high hopes that the university itself would develop a plan to sustain a strong network of partners to include its legacy relationship with the owner of its primary facilities — the University of Minnesota Medical Center and Children’s Hospital.

Now it appears that, under the guidance of Minnesota’s attorney general, the physician faculty of the university through U physicians have crafted a deal that will ensure our students in the health professions can continue their educational progress uninterrupted.

It’s important to understand that many of our health professions require, at core, apprenticeships — working alongside those who practice. Our faculty in nursing, pharmacy, dentistry and medicine — in particular — teach what they do while taking care of people. Books, lectures and classrooms provide academic knowledge, but application of that knowledge requires a learning environment where the students practice along with an experienced nurse, dentist or physician in the art and science of the professions of caring.

As someone who negotiated our relationship with Fairview and worked within it over its first 15 years, we always focused on the practical politics of the possible in place of any political navigation that would result in harm to the future of health care in Minnesota. Those negotiations were never simple, with each of us working to ensure fundamental needs were met.

It is right and proper that the faculty of the Medical School through its physician practice plan have been at the table negotiating a contract that provides patients continued access to care, the continued clinical education of health professional students, and our faculty physicians a place to provide that care with a seasoned partner that has deep and long-term relationships that have served the state well.

I care deeply about the continued success and sustainability of our public university’s impact on the health and well-being of Minnesota’s families and communities and this deal appears to be an important first step in meeting those core needs for our state.