There is a "new future" for Medical College of Georgia after the CEO of the company that runs its health system resigned last month, leading the way to more integrated management, the dean of MCG School of Medicine said Friday.

In his State of the School speech, D. Douglas Miller recounted a series of problems facing the school and its faculty before Don Snell stepped down as the head of the operating company MCG Health Inc. on Oct. 21.

"Before Oct. 21, I must confess that the state of the MCG School of Medicine was one of growing uncertainty and mounting risk," Dr. Miller said. "There were financial and contractual disputes within the MCG Health System; there were widening philosophical rifts concerning the support of our academic health center's educational and research mission; there were measurable declines in our clinical care model's performance indices compared to national peers. And there was a malaise among faculty that their concerns and their survey opinions would go unanswered."

Though he praised Mr. Snell for building a strong, financially sound health system, "it was felt by the (MCG Health) board at this time that a different style of leadership and a greater degree of alignment would be needed to really achieve what was being expected of MCG and its health system going forward," Dr. Miller said.

After Mr. Snell resigned, a more integrated management team from the operating company, the school, and the company representing the faculty, Physicians Practice Group, has been working to align goals and strategies, he said.

"Since the change in philosophy and the new leadership team was put in place, I think we've really accomplished a great deal toward understanding that these are shared responsibilities, that we must find a way to share these costs," Dr. Miller said.

The groups will meet on a shared retreat Dec. 2 to continue to try to align strategic planning and management, he said. There is more optimism among faculty that their voice will be heard in how the hospital and clinics are run, said Dr. Ronald Lewis, the chief of urology.

"At least there's a potential now where there wasn't before," he said. "I think that's been an exciting place to be. As he said, time will tell."

On the research front, funding from the National Institutes of Health jumped from $43.1 million in fiscal year 2008 to $55.6 million in fiscal year 2009, an increase of 29 percent. Though NIH no longer ranks institutions by funding, "that is probably the biggest yearly increase in NIH funding in the country for any institution," Dr. Miller said. "I can assure you this is really a home run."

And those figures do not include $8 million in NIH funding through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, he said.

While the school has been taking the same kind of state budget hits as other agencies, expansion continues on a new branch in Athens in conjunction with the University of Georgia and clinical campuses in Albany and Savannah, making MCG "a statewide medical school," Dr. Miller said. Even with more cuts possible, he thinks that will continue.

"At this point in time I believe we have sufficient resources to not only maintain a strong main campus (in Augusta) but also to continue the expansion project," Dr. Miller said.