Surgeon takes on administrative duties. (People).

IF M. Michael Shabot is successful, the old joke about doctors' lousy handwriting will be a thing of the past.

In his two-year term as newly elected chief of staff at Cedars-Sinai Medical Hospital in Los Angeles, Shabot will represent the Cedars' medical staff in setting goals and care standards. It's a role, he said, that's "part organizer, part coordinator and part cheerleader" for more than 1,800 physicians.

Primary among the new initiatives is implementation of Patient Care Expert, a computer system that will replace doctors' written orders for X-rays, prescriptions and lab tests. Shabot says that virtually every hand written order will be rendered obsolete on May 23, the day PCX goes live at Cedars. No administrative tweak, Shabot sees the upgrade as an opportunity to raise the hospital's level of care. "It's like tuning the performance of airplanes. You can fly the plane or you can fly it precisely," he said.

He has targeted other areas as well, including monitoring the utilization of antibiotics to improve ordering of medications and ensuring that doses and allergies are properly taken into account for each patient.

In addition to administrative duties, Shabot will maintain his surgical schedule of 10 or 15 operations a month.

Shabot received his medical degree from University of Texas, Southwestern Medical School in 1970. He completed an internship at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas and a residency in General Surgery at Harbor/UCLA Medical Center in Torrance. He joined the staff at Harbor/UCLA in 1978 where he remained until moving to Cedars in 1982. Shabot also serves as director of Cedars' surgical intensive care unit. "I don't get much sleep," he said. "But then again I never have."

He lives in Westwood and is married with two children.