Should WASU have its own medical school?
WSU Regents have voted to seek accreditation for its own medical school. This is resulting in an embarrassing “food fight” over a trivial sum of $24 million dollars funding from the 2015 legislative session at a time when the state budget is literally in a billion dollar hole created by the legislature’s failure to provide the constitutionally mandated funds for basic education.
- Two private meetings this summer brought top officials from the University of Washington and Washington State University close to a deal on “co-branding” a medical school in Spokane.
The idea of “co branding” and the Regents’ comment about “Cougar doctors” simply suggests that the WSU regents proposal is really about local pride rather than a realistic analysis of cost benefits to the region, the state, or the students. The funding request, for $24 million, is almost silly. This is far less than the real cost of creating a medical school that could actually bring dollars to Spokane, attract physicians, or create jobs.
To be successful in any of those goals, three questions would need to be answered:
1. Is there a local community with $$$ to give? Would those donations decrease gifts to UW?
2. Are there businesses that would work with WSUSoM to develop biomedical jobs in Spokane? This is a very important question. Given the failure of the State’s investment in South Lake Union to develop as a biotech magnet (note the huge hole now opening up where Amgen was), can Spokane do a better job? Is there a drug company that wants a Spokane address?
3. Would a WSUSoM stimulate local hospitals to create residency programs? Resident training is much more important to attracting local docs than medical school training. Most local, private hospitals and medical practices do not want residency programs because operating such programs is expensive.
There is another question that may strike at the heart of Cougar pride. A UW MD degree is very prestigious. Why would a Washington state kid want a Cougar degree?
This question underlies the huge advantage of the multistate WWAMI degree program. WWAMI offer UWSOM degrees to students from five neighboring states. These students take their first year and part of their clinical training outside Seattle in their home states .. taking advantages of both the UW and the local real world experiences in rural medicine.
That UW degree is a big deal. UWSOM is ranked #1 is family medicine and rural medicine … not only in the US but worldwide. Aside from the obvious prestige of the UW, this ranking reflects the huge effect of the Gates Foundation in funding global health and outcomes research .. an effort that can not be replicated with state dollars in Spokane. The Hutch and Childrens also contribute to the prestige as well as to clinical training opportunities in cancer and pediatrics.
UW graduates are highly sought after worldwide for residency programs and, later, for jobs as physicians. Such strengths and the attraction of world class faculty likely explain why a pilot program to teach second-year med students in Spokane only drew nine UW students even though there was was funding for 20 students. The decision not to go to Spokane was made by the students, not by UWSOM.
Ana Mari Cauce, the UW provost, commented on this at Facebook. She suggests that the main argument for a WSUSoM is the research dollars & patient care dollars. However, as I note above, creating a center that attracts research dollars or provides more patient care is going to cost a LOT more that $24 million/year. Of the back of an envelope, I would suggest a realistic figure to create a competitive research campus would begin with numbers in the range of several time $100 million.
Moreover, Provost Cauce notes that the proposal to the legislature has been framed in terms of educating more doctors. “The cost of education comes almost entirely from tuition and state dollars. WSU’s own private (not collaborative) report suggests it will take 24 million in continuing state dollars (in non-inflation dollars) in addition to the tuition students would pay. And that’s assuming no capital costs because they will just take-over UW WWAMI facilities (nice assumption that ??).”
The The Spokesman-Review goes on to say that WSU President Floyd and Regent Worthy “anticipate further meetings in the hopes of reaching a deal to establish a WSU medical school to operate alongside UW Medical School’s existing five-state WWAMI program which offers medical training at WSU along with public universities in Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho.” State Sen. Michael Baumgartner, R-Spokane, who serves on the higher education committee and is vice chairman of the budget-writing Senate Ways and Means Committee, obviously does not understand why UW students did nt volunteer ot take second year classes in Spokane. He warned UW representatives, “there’s a great question about how interested UW is in Spokane.” A pilot program to teach second-year med students in Spokane only drew nine UW students this year. There was funding for 20 students. “That doesn’t impress a lot of folks,” Baumgartner said.