Dr. Laurie Fajardo has stepped down from her position as chair of the University of Iowa department of radiology following a tumultuous period in which a member of the department claimed he was the victim of harassment and racial bias.
Fajardo will leave her position as head of the department on January 1, 2012, but will remain on the faculty of the university's Carver College of Medicine, according to university spokesperson Tom Moore. She joined the department as chair in 2002.
Fajardo is stepping down to devote more time to research. The department has developed a transition plan in which former radiology chair Dr. Edmund Franken will serve as acting head, Moore said.
Fajardo was at the center of a controversy that erupted earlier this year, when nuclear medicine physician Dr. Malik Juweid accused her of calling him an "academic terrorist" and of making other racially insensitive comments against faculty members of different ethnic backgrounds.
The accusations led to a series of claims and counterclaims between Juweid and the university. The institution suspended Juweid shortly after he went public with his accusations, charging him with harassing and disruptive behavior; Juweid in turn filed a series of antibias claims against the school, as well as a lawsuit filed in a state court.
The news that Fajardo is stepping down comes a few weeks after details emerged in the news media of a university-sponsored review of the department. Originally completed in March 2011, the review found that morale was low in the department, with many faculty members feeling overworked and undercompensated.
Juweid's attorney, Rockne Cole, said that Fajardo's move was a positive step for the university, and that he hoped it would lead to a stepped-up investigation of several practices at the department, including Juweid's accusation that patients received unnecessary PET/CT scans. Juweid has called for a Joint Commission review of the department's PET/CT procedures.
"For well over a year now, Dr. Juweid has expressed strong concerns about Dr. Fajardo's leadership pertaining to excessive PET/CT scanning, as well as her use of derogatory terms against foreign-born faculty," Cole said. "We sincerely hope that her resignation will lead to a fresh start, and lead the department in the right direction."
