A Second Description
Another version from a separate source maintained that several persons were waiting in Ms. Cates office on the morning she returned from vacation. They told her she had gotten the axe. She was directed to immediately collect her belongings, and within minutes they would escort her off the premises permanently. Whatever the case, days later there still is no official company-line version of what happened to Ms. Cate, who had been hired by the previous owner, Tenet Healthcare. A highly secretive group of physicians, collectively known as the Prospect Medical Group, acquired Culver Citys only and historic hospital last year from Tenet, which was being confronted by a growing mountain of legal problems. Ms. Cate was invited to stay on by the new regime in the conviction that she was the most qualified executive to design and supervise a seamless transition for the hospitals many tributaries from old owners to new leadership. In the rumbling wake of the Cate firing, Ms. Smith, who has intimate acquaintance with these kinds of matters over a lifetime of experience, suggested it is natural that the physicians group would want its own person at the CEOs desk. But the way they went about it was not right, Ms. Smith said. I needed to make a statement saying that. A tinge of perceived disloyalty nipped at Ms. Smiths heels as she walked out the door. I feel like a rat leaving a sinking ship, she said. My children were born at Brotman, and so were my grandchildren. Ms. Smith, who is a columnist for the Culver City Observer these days, was strongly critical of the style and substance of the ownership teams notion of governance. Her feelings were transparently conveyed within her statement of resignation. I do not have the time or the energy to wend my way through this kind of administration, she said.
