Today, representatives from the University, Oregon Health and Science University and PeaceHealth are meeting to discuss bringing a medical school to Eugene.
The routine conference is a part of a series of planning meetings that has been going on for a year, according to University Senior Vice President and Provost John Moseley, but the common proceedings belie the ambitious prospect of bringing three organizations together to create a four-year medical school program at the University.
“All three of us see this as something that is very viable for us to do, that would be very useful for the community and the state,” Moseley said.
He said that to his current knowledge, the University could start having medical students on campus within two years.
A four-year medical school program usually consists of two years with a combination of classes and clinical practice and then two years of primarily clinical practice.
Vicki Fields, assistant dean for medical education at OHSU School of Medicine, declined to be interviewed until after the meeting. Barbara Dember, regional vice president of joint venture relations for PeaceHealth’s
Oregon region, also declined an interview. Her assistant, Brenda Tomaro, said Dember would not discuss the matter until March and after she spoke with University President Dave Frohnmayer.
Currently, the details of how the program will be split-up between the Eugene campus and the main OHSU site are not solidified.
Options being considered include having the first two years of the program in Eugene and the second two years in Portland; having the first, third and fourth years in Eugene and the second year in Portland; having all four years in Eugene; or having students split time between Eugene and Portland in some other arrangement, Moseley said.
Moseley said the classes at the University would be taught by both University and OHSU faculty, and possibly by clinical instructors at PeaceHealth. Some University faculty in the departments of biology, human physiology and chemistry already teach classes that are similar to the classes that would be offered in the medical school.
The University would definitely have to hire new faculty members, Moseley said, either to teach at the medical school or to replace current faculty members leaving their departments to teach at the medical school.
Moseley thinks the Institute of Molecular Biology will play a role in the curriculum.
Biology department head George Sprague said he wasn’t sure what the specific roles of the biology department or the Institute of Molecular Biology would be in the new collaboration.
“Most people in the biology department are intrigued by the idea,” Sprague said.
Other University institutes, such as the Oregon Nanoscience and Microtechnologies Institute and the Brain, Biology and Machine Initiative, would only be peripherally involved in the new program, in situations where students chose to earn combined medical and doctorate degrees, Moseley said.
“The purpose of the program is to train doctors,” Moseley said.
Moseley said the medical school will probably be headquartered at the current PeaceHealth site, Sacred Heart Medical Center, just off campus at East 13th Avenue and Hilyard Street. He added that students with clinical assignments at the planned PeaceHealth hospital in Springfield’s Gateway area will be able to ride the Lane Transit District’s planned EmX bus rapid transit system there from campus.
Moseley said having 100 to 200 medical students on campus would increase the demand for graduate student housing. While he expects that many of the students would find housing in the community, he said the University may try to provide more graduate student apartments.
“We’re looking to provide more graduate student housing anyway,” Moseley said.
Because the state does not provide much funding for OHSU, Moseley said the program would have to be primarily self-supporting, through tuition paid by medical school students.
Karen Cooper, pre-health sciences coordinator for Academic Advising, said the new OHSU branch in Eugene would benefit the University, especially if it offered the new spots to in-state students, but said medical schools tend to recruit out of state students because out of state students pay higher tuition.
Tuition and fees for the OHSU School of Medicine are $25,000 for Oregon residents and $35,000 for non-residents, according to an OHSU brochure.
In 2005, OHSU’s applicants were 90 percent out of state and 10 percent in state, according to data from the Association of American Medical Colleges. The entering class, however, was 60.7 percent in state and 39.3 percent out of state.
Moseley said the program is likely to start with third- and fourth-year students coming down from Portland to do clinical work in Eugene. This could happen within two years, but it would likely be three or four years before the first entering class would come to the University.
This will not be the first time the University has been involved with the training of medical doctors.
In 1887, the University founded a medical school in Portland. Merged with Willamette University’s medical education program in 1913, this was known as the University of Oregon Medical School until it became the independent institution that is presently OHSU in 1974, according to the OHSU Web site.
Although officially separate, the institutions have retained a close relationship.
Brian Truong, president of the Asklepiads Pre-Med Society, said OHSU currently stays involved with pre-med students at the University by providing seminars three times a year and recruiting through their multicultural center. Asklepiads also takes about 30 students to OHSU for a field trip every year to visit medical students and admissions counselors.
“That support is really nice, but it would be even nicer if they were down here,” Truong said.
Currently, the prospect of an OHSU branch in Eugene seems distant for Asklepiads members, Truong said. He said the matter was discussed frequently last school year when it was first publicized, but added that many current freshmen don’t even know about it.
Truong said OHSU is one of the primary destinations for Asklepiads members at the University. A junior biochemistry major, he plans to apply there himself, in addition to other West Coast medical schools. He said that while Asklepiads helps students connect with OHSU, having OHSU represented on campus would increase access, and also bring undergraduate pre-med students new opportunities.
“It can only be a good thing,” Truong said. “I can’t see anything negative coming out of it.”
For instance, while pre-med students can currently volunteer at PeaceHealth, if there was a medical school on campus, they could also shadow medical students and get more advanced experience.
“It’s very likely that if people don’t get accepted into medical school, they could possibly do something with the hospital and work their way into medical school,” Truong said.
Cooper said 80 to 90 percent of University pre-med students apply to OHSU as one of their medical school choices. Of the roughly 50 who do so each year, about 12 get admitted, she said.
Cooper said she tells pre-med students to apply to at least 10 schools, but even so, about 50 percent of people nationally who apply to medical schools, even 10 different schools, do not get accepted.
“They are not admitting some students that, in theory, should be admitted,” Cooper said. She attributes this to a limited number of spots that can be filled with only the most eligible students, while others who don’t make the cut may still meet admissions standards.
“You just go, ‘I don’t know why they didn’t get in,’” Cooper said.
At most medical schools, the admissions standards are a 3.5 GPA, one year of English, one year of math, one year of general chemistry, one year of organic chemistry, one year of biology and one year of g
eneral physics, Cooper said.
Meanwhile, she added, all health professions predict a shortage of health care workers in coming years.
“There are a lot more people applying to medical school than can get into medical school,” Moseley said. “There are a lot more positions and needs for physicians than physicians are available.”
Eventually, the program would make OHSU able to grant 50 to 60 more medical degrees per year, although Moseley said the program would probably only grant about 30 medical degrees in its first years.
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