Patricia Maysent

The intrigue surrounding the saga of UCSD Health's departed top man Paul Viviano continues, with a lengthening search underway to fill the vacancy, and approval by U.C. regents of a $516,000 interim appointment.

Paul Viviano

Paul Aisen

As previously reported here in July, Viviano abruptly abandoned his $831,147 job as chief executive officer for the University of California, San Diego Health System and associate vice chancellor for UC San Diego Health Sciences.

The administrator told the Union-Tribune that he found it "agonizing" to leave town to take over as president and chief executive of the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, but wanted to be nearer to his family in Huntington Beach.

The surprise shift came amid the tumult of the university’s costly legal wrangle with Alzheimer’s disease expert Paul Aisen, who resigned in June, alleging that mismanagement of the school's research programs had played havoc with his work.

A court brief filed by the University of Southern California, which lured Aisen to its faculty in a high-dollar research deal, contended that UCSD had “pressured Dr. Aisen to move [the Alzheimer’s program] to the UCSD campus so that UCSD could collect indirect costs of up to 55 percent, a move which would have crippled the program financially by diverting too much grant funding from research projects into UCSD’s Administration.”

In addition, a 2014 audit called out a series of issues regarding UCSD's handling of human body donations to the school.

Since Viviano's summer resignation, the chief executive part of his job has been filled by Patricia Maysent, who worked under him as executive director of Strategic and Business Development.

"Ms. Maysent has been serving as the CEO of UC San Diego Health System since Mr. Viviano’s departure, without any additional compensation beyond her current salary of $299,252," says a November 20 regents report.

"Since her temporary role as interim CEO is expected to continue for up to eight more months, the temporary salary is proposed to properly compensate her for her services retroactive to the date she assumed the role. Because it is retroactive, this is considered an exception to policy.”

Adds the document, "The campus proposes a base salary of $430,000 while she is in this interim role, reflecting a temporary increase of 43.7 percent.”

In addition to the base pay, the report says, Maysent will also get bonus cash from the university's Clinical Enterprise Management Recognition Plan, "with a target award of 20 percent of base salary ($86,000) and a maximum potential award of 30 percent of base salary ($129,000) for the period served as Interim Chief Executive Officer.”

Her total "target cash compensation" is listed as $516,000.

"At the conclusion of the interim appointment, Ms. Maysent will return to her former role as Executive Director, Strategic and Business Development, and her total cash compensation will revert to her total cash compensation in effect as of August 8, 2015, plus any adjustments resulting from salary programs implemented during the interim appointment."