Not all enrollment trends at the University of Missouri-Columbia are down the medical school has increased its class size by one-third this year.

The expansion, to a class of 128 from 96, is aimed at addressing a looming physician shortage created by an aging population. Most of Missouri is considered to have a shortage of health professionals, particularly rural parts of the state. The state needs an additional 367 doctors to accommodate its population, according to Kaiser Family Foundation data.

In 2006, the Association of American Medical Colleges recommended medical schools increase their enrollments by 30 percent in the following decade. The same year, St. Louis University increased the number of first-year students to 175 from 150, making it the largest medical school in the state.

Washington Universitys medical school enrollment has stayed between 120 and 124 students per class. There are no plans to increase the size of the class, which is partly influenced by the number of faculty and available space, according to the dean of admissions.

Mizzou started looking at expanding its class size soon after the 2006 recommendations, said Weldon Webb, an associate dean.

Were the No. 1 provider of practicing physicians in Missouri, so if somebody was going to increase, it should probably be Columbia, he said.

The expansion of the medical school includes a new $42.5 million classroom and laboratory building on the Columbia campus. A clinical campus opened last year in Springfield where some third- and fourth-year students train, aided by a partnership with CoxHealth and Mercy hospitals. About 44 percent of the medical schools students stay in Missouri after graduation, Webb said.

The growth of the medical school contrasts with undergraduate enrollment in Columbia, which dropped by about 14 percent this fall. The incoming class of about 4,000 freshmen is the smallest in nearly 20 years.

Reports of racism and a lack of diversity at Mizzou contributed to the drop in undergraduate enrollment and have also caused troubles for the medical school.

The medical schools credentials are at risk if it doesnt train more minority doctors, according to a 2016 report from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, the accrediting organization for U.S. medical schools. The committee previously cited the school for its lack of diversity in 2001 and 2008.

The committees most recent recommendations give the school until 2018 to increase the number of black, Hispanic and Native American medical students, among other requirements.

Last year, less than 4 percent of Mizzous medical students belonged to one of the three underrepresented minority groups, according to national data. In the incoming class, 9 percent of students identify as black, Hispanic or Native American, school officials said.

The increased diversity of the incoming class tops St. Louis University, where 7 percent of medical students are in the three minority groups. The accrediting body placed SLUs medical school on a two-year probation in February in part for its problems recruiting and retaining low-income and first-generation students.

Washington Universitys rate of underrepresented minority medical students is 9 percent. University of Missouri-Kansas City has the states most diverse medical student body, with 12 percent.

Ebony Page of St. Louis joined Mizzous class of 2021 because of the medical schools growth and the opportunities to work in underserved communities after graduation, she said.

For me, growing up in the inner city and knowing the health disparities, a lot of it has to do with access to care, said Page, 27. To see the shortage firsthand made it important to go to an institution where it was important to them.

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Mizzou medical school will produce more doctors to address shortage - STLtoday.com

David Rush was interviewed by Josh Hauser, MD.

Hip-hop artist and motivational speaker David Rush kicked off the first day of medical school for Feinbergs Class of 2021, discussing his experience with focal segmental glomerulosclerosis, a life-threatening kidney condition that eventually forced him onto dialysis.

Rush was interviewed onstage by Josh Hauser, MD, associate professor of Medicine in the Division of Hospital Medicineand of Medical Education, as part of Feinbergs first-week curriculum, called Introduction to the Profession.

According to Rush, the first signs of trouble appeared when he was in 10th grade, during a school-mandated physical for football. High protein levels indicated poor kidney function and he was prescribed medication, which he took throughout high school. But when Rush moved to Georgia to attend the Art Institute of Atlanta, he left his self-care at home in New Jersey.

I forgot about the medical side living away from your parents and your doctors, youre not really thinking about what your blood pressure is or what your creatinine levels are, Rush said. Youre thinking, How much is Wendys again?

It wasnt until Rush underwent a physical at the urging of a friend that he discovered just how poorly his kidneys were functioning. His doctors told him he needed to start dialysis or he could die within a year. Still, Rush delayed starting the treatment. After 10 months had elapsed without treatment, Rush was discovered passed out in his sisters apartment.

He woke up in the emergency room, connected to a dialysis machine.

It was scary, I didnt want to be there, Rush said. But thats how I started dialysis.

These days, Rush spends three hours a day hooked up to a dialysis machine. While it can make him feel like hes pressed for time, he said, its also given him insight into how much patients sacrifice to receive medical care.

Patients time is taken the time they spend at hospitals, the time they spend in doctors offices and the time they spend on treatment, he said. So when youre seeing patients, you have to think about how theyre spending their time. When they finally see you it may be the seventh hour theyve been spending on this. They might come in a little edgy, but were not mad at you, but we need you to understand us.

First-year medical student Balaji Veluswamy said he appreciated hearing about Rushs experience. I havent heard that perspective before: the point of view of a patient who had time taken away from them. The patient is who you learn from the most. I find that fascinating.

Introduction to the Profession week familiarizes students with the roles of medical student and physician, connecting them to the competencies that constitute the core of the Feinberg curriculum. These competencies include ethics, teamwork, communication, patient-centered care, quality improvement, and personal awareness and self-care.

The first week also serves as an opportunity for medical students to learn about the informal curriculum the attitudes and values conveyed by Feinberg education practices and culture.

I like to think of it as the things that happen before and after class, on your way to class, and when youre talking to friends and colleagues, Hauser said. When I look back on my time as a medical student, those things are every bit as important as the more explicit goals.

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Med School Curriculum Kicks Off With a Patient's Story - Northwestern University NewsCenter

BUFFALO, N.Y. They volunteer at food pantries and suicide hotlines, work with the homeless and refugees, and assist at hospice and Meals on Wheels. Theyve done research on cancer, diabetes and geriatrics, and worked on medical missions all over the globe.

They are the 180 students of the Class of 2021 at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo. Today, Aug. 11, at 3 p.m., they will receive their white coats at a ceremony in the Mainstage theater in the Center for the Arts on the UB North Campus.

Best time for photos: Students will begin to be coated at approximately 3:30 p.m. For press arrangements, contact Ellen Goldbaum in the UB Office of University Communications at 716-645-4605 or 716-771-9255 and on-site.

For each student who will be coated, the ceremony is a personal milestone, said Michael E. Cain, MD, vice president for health sciences and dean of the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

But this years white coat ceremony is also an institutional milestone, Cain added. Today, we officially welcome to UB its largest-ever medical school class, 180 students, up from 144.

That expansion, which he called a necessity to help fill the physician shortage in the region and in the nation, was only made possible by the construction of the new downtown home of the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. Students will begin classes in the new building in January after spending their first semester on the South Campus.

Of the 180 students, 152 are from New York State, 78 are from Western New York and 40 earned their undergraduate degrees from UB.

At the ceremony, all 180 medical students will take the Oath of Medicine. During the "calling of the class," students will be called to the stage individually to be presented with their coat while their undergraduate institution and hometown is identified by Charles M. Severin, MD, PhD, UB associate dean for medical education and admissions.

The keynote address will be given by Robert H. Ablove, MD, clinical associate professor in the Department of Orthopaedics. The Leonard Tow Humanism in Medicine award will be presented to Lynn Steinbrenner, MD, clinical assistant professor in the Department of Medicine and chief of the Oncology Section at the Veterans Administration WNY Healthcare System.

The white coat ceremony is a symbolic rite of passage shared by medical students across the U.S. to establish a psychological contract for professionalism and empathy in the practice of medicine.

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Media Advisory: White coat ceremony for UB's largest-ever medical school class marks institutional milestone - UB News Center

Two years ago, the brother of actress Mindy Kaling published a confessional book describing how he posed as an African-American in order to gain admission into medical schools whose rigorous academic standards made his acceptance as an Indian-American virtually impossible. With affirmative action back in the news recently thanks to a (misreported) New York Times story about the Trump Justice Department potentially investigating claims of discrimination against whites (in truth, the possible inquiry was about alleged unfair treatment of Asian students), Vijay Chokal-Ingam appeared on CNN to discuss his experience. After summarizing how he overcame a subpar GPA by presenting himself as black, "JoJo" ripped affirmative action as codified racism and said he hopes President Trump will put an end to the practice, which he provocatively compared to Lincoln's abolition of slavery:

Trump has actually supported affirmative action policies, but Chokal-Ingam reasons that the president's conservative judicial picks and DOJ will undermine and eventually kill off what he calls legalized racial discrimination. Reacting to the news that for the first time ever, a slim majority of Harvard's incoming freshman class identifies as non-white, Chokal-Ingam expressed skepticism over the statistic. Borrowing Trump's famous (and deserved) derisive nickname for Elizabeth Warren, he cited the "Pocahontas factor," speculating that some significant number of students likely laid claim to dubious racial statuses in order to increase their chances of getting into the prestigious university.

On the question of race-based affirmative action vis-a-vis college admissions or corporate hiring, I have long abhorred the current regime -- which was once much more defensible -- as outmoded and unjust. Why should a wealthy Latino student from Beverly Hills or an affluent black student from Greenwich receive special advantages over a dirt poor white kid from Appalachia, whose family has been ravaged by the opioid epidemic? And why is it okay to make things substantially harder for some people of color (Asians) than others? Reaching these decisions based on skin color is antithetical to Martin Luther King's dream of a colorblind society. Race-based affirmative action should be stamped out; socio-economic affirmative action should replace it. It's simply undeniable that advantaged students from well-to-do communities have many more resources available to them than their underserved peers, creating a systemically uneven playing field. Offering a leg up to applicants who hail from from substantially less privileged families or communities is fair. I'd add that diversity of experience and thought are more valuable and enriching than "diversity" as defined purely by skin color. Plus, it's likely that a ripple effect of socio-economic affirmative action would also encourage some racial diversification, so long as certain communities remain disproportionately disadvantaged.

I'll leave you with this statistic, via Gallup last summer. While many in the media freaked out over the Times' misleading report, most Americans would be quite pleased to see racial presences and factors banished from the college admissions process -- including a majority of blacks and a super-majority of Hispanics:

In total, fully 70 percent of Americans believe race should not be a factor in admissions decisions, favoring a "merit only" rubric. As ever, the elite media and their liberal social circles are extraordinarily out of touch with much of America.

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Watch: Dude Who Pretended to be Black to Get Into Medical School Wants Trump to Abolish Affirmative Action - Townhall

Former Nevada Congresswoman Shelley Berkley says Nevada can't afford two publicmedical schools. And with UNLV's new school starting this year, UNR's school should be shut down.

"We spend $60 milliona biennium to keep UNR's medical school going," Berkley told Nevada Public Radio. She is the CEO and senior provost at Touro University/Western Division, an osteopathic medical school in Henderson. "I dont think this state will want to sustain two medical schools.

Berkley joined Barbara Atkinson, dean of UNLV's new medical school, and Renee Coffman, co-founder and president of Roseman University of Health Sciences, to talk about the health care needs in Southern Nevada.

All three schools expect to churn out more doctors but that won't necessarily mean Nevada will get those doctors. Often graduating physicians stay in the cities where they do their residencies, which comes after medical school.

The number of residencies at different hospitals in southern Nevada is still relatively small, so many of the medical school students here will move to other states after graduation.

"Without any local residencies for these medical school graduates to go to basically what we would be doing is just exporting our graduates to other states to do their residencies," Heidi Kyser, staff writer for Desert Companion said.

Kyser interviewed the three women for an article in the August issue of the magazine. She said part of the problem is that residency programs are expensive. They are often funded by federal grants.

"The process for getting that funding is really complicated," Kyser explained, "And most of Nevada's hospitals have already hit the limit of that funding and the number of physicians they can get."

In Las Vegas, University Medical Center, Sunrise Hospital, and the VA hospital have had the bulk of the residency programs but more private hospitals are opening residencies.

As for the idea of closing the medical school at UNR, Kyser talked to Thomas Schwenk, the dean of that medical school, he told her he believes all the citizens of the state of Nevada deserve access to all the benefits that public medical school brings to a community not just those in the southern part of the state.

According to the three women interviewed, one of the biggest benefits would be employment and not just for new doctors trained at their facilities.

"We focus on health professions, like Shelley does at Touro, they have jobs when they get out," said Renee Coffman with Roseman University of Health Services, "So, as a prospective student that's a tremendous return on investment for your educational dollars."

Berkley added that for the 10 to 20 years health care will be where all the jobs are.

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Shelley Berkley: UNR's Med School Should Close Its Doors - KNPR