Opinion | Resolution of U/Fairview conflict is a job for Walz

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Cue the Rouser: I’m here today because of the top-notch medical care I received five years ago this week at the University of Minnesota Hospital.

The surgery that relieved me of my cancerous bladder and replumbed my innards was complicated, arduous and expertly done.

In other words, it was exactly the sort of sophisticated care that Minnesotans have come to expect at their flagship university’s medical centers. The ready availability of care of that quality surely warrants a few bars of “hats off to thee.”

But more than a pundit’s praise is needed right now to keep that vital asset strong. Gubernatorial leadership is needed.

Here’s a plea to Gov. Tim Walz: Please employ the tools that only a governor has to end the long-running conflict between the University of Minnesota and the owner of its hospital, Fairview Health Services, and to set academic medicine at the U on surer financial footing.

But I hold that the fate of academic medicine at the U is too critical to the whole state for any official other than the governor to take the ultimate lead.

It’s not just that Minnesotans go to the U of M Hospital when they are really sick — though they do. It’s not just that research breakthroughs from university labs improve care — though they do. It’s not just that the students who would be doctors, nurses and other health professionals go to the U for training — though they do, in big numbers.

What’s vital is the synergy that results as education, research and clinical practice combine in the U’s medical quarters. When caregivers are also teachers and researchers — and when quality is a paid-for priority in all three missions — Minnesota benefits in far-reaching ways.

Medical outcomes improve. New industries develop. A reputation as the “wellness state” blossoms. Talent is attracted from around the globe. (I’ll bow here in the direction of Rochester to acknowledge the considerable contributions of the Mayo Clinic.) The state prospers.

That’s a case for U medicine that Minnesotans ought to hear loud and clear from a gubernatorial bully pulpit. Stakeholders — including other health care providers – ought to be subjected to gubernatorial jawboning to do their part.

You might ask: What about the deal that Ellison helped broker in November between the university physicians and Fairview? Doesn’t that involve a sufficient flow of money to academic medicine?

Likely not, say U leaders. It guarantees the U $30 million less per year from Fairview than it receives now, while having the potential to disrupt the delicate balance between education, research and clinical practice that is academic medicine’s secret sauce. Put more emphasis on clinical practice, as U leaders fear this deal would do, and education and research will suffer, to Minnesota’s long-term detriment.

That’s why the physicians/Fairview deal ought not be the last word in this long-running drama. A surer way forward for academic medicine is needed, and soon: The existing arrangement between Fairview and the U will legally expire at the end of 2026.

This issue can’t wait. Not for an election, or a new gubernatorial term, or the next budget-setting year of the state Legislature. It needs a governor, now.

What’s more: Walz needs this issue just now. Politically, he needs to get out of the defensive crouch that the human services fraud revelations have put him in and stand up for a broadly unifying cause. As he asks voters for an unprecedented third four-year term, he needs to exhibit the problem-solving and power-wielding skill he has acquired through two terms in office.