Center loses all its audiologists.

Byline: Sherri Buri McDonald The Register-Guard

CORRECTION (ran May 13, 2007): A doctor of audiology has a doctoral degree, abbreviated Au.D. A story Saturday about Eugene Hearing & Speech Center contained the incorrect degree.

On Monday, all five audiologists at Eugene Hearing & Speech Center resigned, after months of communicating concerns about their work environment to the center's board of directors.

On Wednesday, the board of the nonprofit center officially ousted its CEO, Alise Kermisch. She had been in the job for just five months.

The upheaval leaves patients with hearing disorders in the lurch, saddened to lose long-standing relationships with their audiologists and wondering if they can continue to receive treatment and services locally, or if they will have to travel as far away as Portland.

The turmoil also serves as a reminder of how vulnerable patients in smaller metro areas can be when only one provider in town - or, in this case, in an entire county - offers certain specialized medical services.

The center's board hopes there won't be any disruption in services, said Kerry Rasmusson, chairwoman of the 11-person board. "We're looking at a number of possible solutions, and we obviously hope to minimize the impact on the center's audiology patients," she said.

The five audiologists who resigned gave two weeks' notice and are scheduled to work through May 18.

The board will aggressively recruit to rebuild the center's audiology department, Rasmusson said. It will explore options that could include partnering with local health care providers, or possibly rehiring some of the audiologists who resigned.

"Nationwide it can be difficult to find doctors of audiology," Rasmusson said.

Audiologists are health care professionals who are trained to evaluate and test hearing, hearing loss and related disorders. Doctors of audiology have PhDs.

The center will try to continue to serve patients with acute or unique audiology needs, Rasmusson said. If that isn't possible, those patients will be referred to other clinicians locally or elsewhere. Routine appointments are being scheduled for June 1 and beyond.

"We expect to be able to keep those appointments," Rasmusson said, adding however, that those appointments may need to be rescheduled as they draw nearer.

The center's speech and language clinicians will continue to provide their regular services, she said.

The center, founded in a one-room office in 1955, provides a variety of speech, language and hearing services, including diagnostic hearing tests, hearing aid fitting, counseling and repair. It served 7,483 patients last year and is the area's sole provider for specialized services, such as diagnostic hearing tests for infants, testing to pinpoint abnormalities in the central nervous system and inner ear, and cochlear implant evaluations and mapping, Rasmusson said.

"We see a small number of patients in each of these areas," she said. "It's our intent to resume treatment as soon as we're able, but in the meantime, we're referring those patients to (Oregon Health & Science University in Portland.)

Four-year-old Maren Monticelli, who was born profoundly deaf, has been going to the center since she was 4 weeks old, said her mother, Daisy Monticelli.

Maren had cochlear implant surgery in Portland three years ago, and has had frequent appointments with audiologist Kim Niday for mapping, or programming the tiny processor in the electronic device.

Some of those visits were emergencies, for example, when Maren went down a slide two years ago and the static electricity erased the mapping, Monticelli said. Or the time the implant's battery went on the fritz, and Maren saw Niday three times in one week.

Maren also has a standing weekly appointment with Niday for therapy focused on listening, interpreting spoken language and talking, Monticelli said.

"Kim has developed a relationship with Maren for the past four years," Monticelli said. That kind of relationship can't be instantly re-created with a new audiologist, she said.

If there's a disruption in services, the Monticellis will have to spend a lot of time driving to Portland.

"I'm a stay-at-home mom; I can do that," Monticelli said. "But for two working parents or single parents out there ... it's going to be really tough to work through this."

The timing of the center's problems couldn't be worse for the Karpinski family.

Seth Karpinski and Annie Zeidman-Karpinski's 3-year-old son, Boris, was diagnosed profoundly deaf in March. The Karpinskis are evaluating whether to have their son undergo cochlear implant surgery. "We're leaning toward getting the cochlear implant," Seth Karpinski said. The family was anticipating weekly or biweekly appointments at the Eugene center after the surgery.

If those services are no longer available locally, the Karpinskis will have to make many trips to Portland. But that won't influence their decision of whether to get the implant, Karpinski said. "It's more of an inconvenience than a deal breaker," he said.

"It's a stressful situation to begin with, and this just adds to it," he said. "We're on a roller coaster ride and it's just one more dip, but overall, it won't change our decision."

After a long career at the center, Jane Eyre McDonald last December stepped down as executive director, and Kermisch, of Columbus, Ohio, was hired as CEO.

The center ran a deficit of $72,711 in 2004, according to the latest Form 990 filed with the IRS.

Kermisch had a business background and owned an interpreting and consulting firm in Ohio.

But problems apparently began cropping up soon after the new CEO was hired.

"The work environment deteriorated rapidly about four months ago," Susan Detels, an audiologist who had worked at the center for 15 years, said via e-mail. Detels resigned in March, before the mass resignation of the center's five remaining audiologists. Detels said she accepted a position elsewhere, which allowed her to be home more with her children.

"The audiologists communicated numerous problems and concerns to the Board of Directors over a two- to three-month time span," Detels wrote. "The Board failed to provide the necessary intervention and the audiologists were left with no other choice but to leave an intolerable situation. Sadly, there is a loss of more than 65 years of experience as well as a loss of specialized services not available elsewhere in the county, and in some cases, even most of the state."

Detels declined to be more specific about the "problems and concerns."

Rasmusson also declined to give any details about the resignations, saying that information is personnel related.

Rasmusson issued the following comment as part of a broader statement from the board, but would not elaborate on the board's reasons for firing Kermisch: "Alise joined the center just five months ago and embraced the community and the center's mission. Ultimately her skills did not align well with the center's needs."

Kermisch could not be reached for comment.

Rasmusson said she didn't think that the audiologists' resignations forced the board's hand, "but I think it's fair to say it changed our timeline."

"Whenever you bring any new executive into an organization there is a time of transition and change, and as a board we were working diligently ... with all the center's staff," she said. "We were diligently working on all of these issues."

Now the board is working on both an interim and a long-term solution to the CEO position, Rasmusson said.

Daisy Monticelli said she's hopeful that the center will restore the services her daughter Maren uses. "But even if Eugene Hearing & Speech hires a new audiologist to replace the one we've been seeing, at this point I'm not sure we'll continue to go to (the center) with our daughter because I'm not sure how I feel about continuing to support (the center) when they would allow problems to escalate to this point where all their audiologists would resign."