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Hm. Here’s a wake-up call.

UCLA has been building a big conflict of interest case against one of its faculty members for some time, and today the university announces a suit against him to recover millions of dollars.

If you’re an academic physician, or any other sort of university professor using your office mainly as a place to do private business (and of course collecting your university salary on top of that), maybe you should read this.

A group of UCLA staff members entered a medical school professor’s office late at night in January 2008 to gather electronic evidence of alleged prohibited outside activities involving Dr. Robert Lufkin.

In their lawsuit, the Regents claim Lufkin owes the University for the millions of dollars that he earned while acting as a director, shareholder and consultant at outside medical and technological firms U.S. Radiology On-Call, Prohealth Advanced Imaging and Mediasmith.

For years, Lufkin had allegedly been working with these companies while failing to report his involvement and income in accordance with UC policy…

According to the Regents’ complaint submitted to the court, Lufkin had been using University resources to build a “directly competing business.”

“(Lufkin had been) siphoning away patients to the detriment of the University and generally building his own business when he owed a duty to his employer of undivided loyalty to advance his employer’s interests,” according to the Regents’ complaint…

Margaret Soltan, April 20, 2010 2:10PM
Posted in: conflict of interest

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4 Responses to “Hm. Here’s a wake-up call.”

  1. DM Says:
    April 20th, 2010 at 2:13PM

    How about law professors that have a private practice, often in a city miles away from the campus, and thus skip any office presence?

  2. Margaret Soltan Says:
    April 20th, 2010 at 2:15PM

    Well, they’re supposed to keep office hours, so that would be a problem. Are they commuting in to teach? You’ve got to do SOMETHING to be employed by a university. Unless you’re Greek.

  3. DM Says:
    April 21st, 2010 at 6:59AM

    They commute to teach, and they are hardly ever seen apart from their classes. At least, so I’m told.

  4. Townsend Harris Says:
    April 21st, 2010 at 9:49AM

    “… they are hardly ever seen apart from their classes.”

    This lawyerly example sounds like a sensible financial strategy for poorly-paid adjuncts.

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