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DURHAM - The new chief executive officer of Duke University Medical Center had just finished seeing patients. He was wearing a white lab coat he didn't bother to button - a coat with "William Fulkerson, M.D." embroidered on right above the heart. One end of a stethoscope was sticking out of a pocket.
Unlike his predecessor, Michael Israel, who had a business background and kept an honorary lab coat in a closet, Fulkerson is an internist and lung specialist who doesn't want to stop practicing medicine. He's also a research investigator and a Duke University medical professor.
He acknowledges that his new job, one of the most prestigious positions at universityaffiliated medical centers in the United States, will require adjusting the hats he wears.
"The hat that's going to be most important to me is that of CEO," Fulkerson says.
That will mean seeing fewer patients, giving up work with the nurses who staff Duke's Life Flight helicopter service, teaching fewer students and limiting his professional attire to suits and ties.
As he is dealing with Medicaid cutbacks estimated at $20 million on annual revenues of about $850 million next fiscal year, Fulkerson may fondly remember when he was a physician first and an administrator second. "It's going to be...