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Greenberg responds to questions from June 15 meeting During a “town hall” meeting June 15, MUSC President Ray Greenberg, M.D., Ph.D., answered questions from faculty members on issues that concerned them. During the next few weeks, The Catalyst will publish those questions with Greenberg’s answers. The intent is to encourage further dialogue on issues of concern to the MUSC family. Questions, comments and concerns can be addressed by e-mail to president@musc.edu. They will be published with replies as they become available. Steve Schabel—Radiology: The Radiology Department chair resigned a couple of weeks ago. Only a few days after his resignation, Dr. McCurdy came to the department and announced that he had appointed a permanent replacement without a search. In the philosophical view, I would like to hear from you what your view of the place of search committees in administrative positions at the university should be? Dr. Greenberg: We have filled a number of department chairmanships, deanships, associate provosts, and provost positions without searches.  There are certainly circumstances when an internal appointment is justified. One is the critical need to fill the position and it has to happen fairly quickly. Secondly, there are advantages to an internal appointment, because you know that person better than you could possibly know anybody who is coming in from the outside.  Furthermore, that individual knows the situations within the unit, and there is very little learning that has to take place as it would from someone coming from the outside. Thirdly, when there is very little resource to attract someone from the outside it is a pragmatic reality that it’s hard to get somebody to move when there are immediate financial challenges to deal with. Another thing, it is a little awkward in replacing department level leadership in the College of Medicine. As everyone knows, there’s a search that has just been initiated for a new dean of the college and a question that everybody has been asking, whether it’s an internal or external candidate coming in, is “Who am I going to be working for? Who is my boss?” It’s hard to recruit department chairs when you have that uncertainty. Again, none of that is to say that I don’t think that external recruitment, in general, during normal operating circumstances, is a highly desirable way to fill positions.