Current issues facing academic surgery departments: stakeholders' views.

Purpose: To determine the issues important to stakeholders in today's academic surgery departments, to query key stakeholders about possible solutions, and to investigate the correlation of organizational alignment among department stakeholders with department performance.

Method: Between July 2003 and October 2005, the author designed, piloted and carried out a study in which he interviewed key stakeholders-deans, chief executive officers/chief financial officers (CEOs/CFOs) of hospitals and health system practice plans, surgery department chairs, and surgery department members-from 12 randomly selected academic surgery departments. Important issues and solutions were identified and comparisons among stakeholder groups performed.