The primary goal of the design for UBs new downtown School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences is to create new opportunities for interactions between UB medical students and faculty members in clinical and basic science departments, according to Kenneth Drucker, design principal for the project and design director for HOKs New York office.

To bring together academia and research, the design sandwiches the three research floors between the more public parts of the medical education program on the lower floors and the more specialized, pedagogical components, such as the human anatomy suite, on the upper floors, he says. A common atrium and second-floor piano nobile, or principal level, fosters collaboration between educators, researchers and the greater Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus community.

Faculty, researchers and students will have clinical responsibilities on the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, which will be physically connected to the medical school's piano nobile level by an enclosed bridge across High Street.

By providing opportunities for learning, researching and credentialing for medical practitioners from across the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, the building creates a true academic medical campus.

And while the new building is clearly modern, it acknowledges the citys architectural history, notes Robert G. Shibley, dean of the UB School of Architecture and Planning and head of the committee that selected HOK to design the UB medical school. Our goal was to find expression for a new medical school that is comfortable with some of the historical circumstances that surround it and that is typical of sites across Buffalo where new and old work well together.

The medical school design does this through the use of an open interior space, similar to other large urban buildings in Buffalo, such as the Ellicott Square Building or the Market Arcade building. Just like these buildings, the new medical school will appear to take up a whole city block, but it actually has an open interior that invites social engagement and creates an opportunity for natural light within the interior, increasing the utility of space inside the core of the building, Shibley says.

In addition to fostering interactions within the medical school and the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, the new building will further the development of an active, vibrant community with its integration of the NFTA's Allen Street transit hub.

This is the transit-oriented development that the state-of-the-art city building calls for, says Shibley. Anytime you can place a high-density workforce at the intersection of a high-capacity transit system, can live anywhere along the corridor, can create a mixed use family of activities at the street level, and can find a way to go to work and go home without your car, you have successful transit-oriented development.

Shibley says the new medical school will further strengthen Buffalos NFTA-Metro system. Buffalo already has, in terms of performance and ridership density, a well-functioning, though short, Metro system, he says. This new development will presumably increase efficiency while increasing ridership without increasing demand for capacity in the overall system. We had room for more riders and the new medical school will give us more.

The Metro stations location in UBs new medical school building provides mass transit options not only to students, faculty and employees, but also to patients, families and other visitors to the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.

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Medical school design, layout encourage collaboration

Medical schools traditionally have accepted students with the highest test scores and best science grades. But in an article published online Wednesday by the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Robert Witzburg of Boston University School of Medicine writes about what he considers a better approach to choosing future physicians: holistic review.

Medical schools that use this method give potential students points for overcoming adversity, showing resilience, and being empatheticas well as for academic achievement. Admissions officers consider letters of reference, interviews, and community service experience to evaluate these qualities.

Since BU medical school adopted this approach in 2003, the profile of its entering class has changed dramatically, Witzburg writes. Students from groups under-represented in medicineAfrican Americans, Native Americans, Pacific Islanders, and Hispanicsmake up 20 percent of the class now, up from 11 to 12 percent. Faculty also believe students are more supportive of one another, he said.

The school has not sacrificed academics. Students grade point averages and Medical College Admission Test scores have increased slightly over the past five years, which could in part reflect the colleges ability to recruit stronger students.

No one thinks we should be looking for medical students who arent good in science, Witzburg said in an interview in February. But he said that is not the only indicator of future success.

Witzburg compared a high school student who grows up with a silver spoon and goes to science camp and has every possible advantage to a student who grows up in a single parent family in a crime-ridden neighborhood. They both apply with 3.5 grade point averages.

Are those the same 3.5? No, he said.

Boston University also has an initiative to try to boost empathy of current medical students through reflection groups, during which students talk about difficult experiences, such as a patient dying and coping with conflicting feelings of wanting to both talk to and avoid the family, or feeling nothing at all.

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BU Medical School selects students based on “holistic review,’’ not just test scores and grades

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Medical Student Moy Talks About Educational Loans

Mark Moy came to the U.S. from China, paid his way through medical school at the University of Illinois in the 1970s and became an emergency room physician.

His son Matthew, a third-year medical student, has racked up $190,000 in debt and still has a year to go. Accrued interest on his medical-school loans has swelled his balance by 13 percent over three years.

When I think about it, it will keep me up at night, said Matthew Moy, 28. Im dreading the exit interview when I will find out exactly how much Ill have to pay back.

The next generation of U.S. physicians is being saddled with record debt amid a looming shortage of doctors needed to cope with a rising elderly population. The burgeoning debt burden may be turning students away from primary care, which pays about $200,000 a year, toward more lucrative specialties and scaring off low-income and minority students fearful of taking on big loans.

Median tuition and fees at private medical schools was $50,309 in the 2012-2013 academic year, more than 16 times the cost when Moys father became a doctor. The median education debt for 2012 medical-school graduates was $170,000, including loans taken out for undergraduate studies and excluding interest. That compares with an average $13,469 in 1978, said Jay Youngclaus, co-author of a February 2013 report on medical school debt. The 1978 amount would be about $48,000 in todays dollars.

Even Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernankes son cant expect to escape the debt burden. The elder Bernanke testified before Congress last year that his son is on track to leave medical school with $400,000 in loans. The figure may include accrued interest and undergraduate costs. His son attends Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, according to the school directory. Bernanke, through a spokeswoman, declined to comment.

The median four-year cost to attend medical school -- which includes outlays like living expenses and books -- for the class of 2013 is $278,455 at private schools and $207,868 at public ones, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges, a nonprofit group of U.S. schools.

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Medical School at $278,000 Means Even Bernanke Son Carries Debt

When the challenges facing the medical industry come up, one doesn't normally think of Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. But he illustrated a stark reality awaiting would-be doctors when he testified beforeCongress that his son ison pace to graduate from medical school with a whopping $400,000 in loans.

Bernanke's son isn't unusual. The median education debt for 2012 medical school graduates was $170,000 in 2012, compared with $13,469 in 1978, according to Bloomberg, which adds that in today's dollars, the 1978 amount would be $48,000.

The huge cost -- and resulting debt -- of medical school may be dissuading some students from enrolling, the story says. That's coming at a sensitive time for America's health care industry, which is facing a shortage of doctors just as an aging population needs them most.

With the average four-year cost of medical school amounting to $278,455 for private schools and $207,868 for public universities, some lower-income students in particular may find the expense daunting.

"You probably are pricing out a whole segment of lower-income kids that have the ability and the intellect to succeed," Ami Bera, a California congressman and a physician, told Bloomberg. He said he left medical school in 1991 with less than $10,000 in loans.

Most medical students finance their studies with loans, given that very few full scholarships are available and grants usually pay for only a portion of the cost. But those loans don't come cheap, with graduate students paying as much as 7.9% on federal loans, far higher than the U.S. 10-year Treasury note's 1.78%, Bloomberg points out.

The country is facing a shortage of 90,000 doctors in 10 years, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. Some specialties, such as urology and thoracic surgery, will see a decrease of physicians, while the number of Americans over the age of 65 is projected to grow by one-third, the group says. On top of that, doctors themselves are getting older, with one-third projected to retire in the next decade.

The reasons behind the surging tuition might be simply the rising cost of maintaining a functioning hospital, according to the 2x2 Project, a site that's sponsored by the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health.

But the prices that hospitals and other health care centers charge are outrageous, with X-rays and drug injections subjected to huge markups, according to a Time magazine report by Steven Brill that was highlighted by my colleague Kim Peterson.

Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer (PFE) are spending less money on wooing doctors, a practice that's come under fire for driving up the costs of drugs, as my colleague Jonathan Berr wrote on Friday.

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Medical school costs soaring

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Ronnie Tisdale joined a South Asian a capella group during his undergraduate studies. It was an extracurricular activity he was able to enjoy only after he was granted early acceptance into Mount Sinai's Icahn School of Medicine.

"I was really able to explore and really appreciate the beauty of a college education, to be able to take foreign languages, to study music," he says.

Tisdale is part of Mt. Sinai's Humanities and Medicine program, which allows students to forego traditional pre-med requirements like organic chemistry, physics and even the MCAT exam.

Now the school is expanding the 25-year old program, recruiting from different undergraduate disciples to eventually make up half of its class. Dean David Muller says they want to free students from the culture of aggressive competition and outdated requirements, which may sap creativity.

"They've done as well as their peers," Muller says. "This program will provide a very different approach for people who are creative and can sustain, nurture their creativity throughout college and bring that to medical school and help us change medical school, help us change the practice of medicine."

Mt. Sinai hopes the now Flex-Med program will also attract less privileged students and those disadvantaged due to systematic inequalities.

"We dont have enough students of color in medical schools. We don't have enough students who are from the LGBT community," Muller says. "It clearly translates into worse care for people who come from groups that are underrepresented in medicine."

Recently, Tisdale saw this in action while shadowing doctors at Elmhurst Hospital. He was able to assist a Lebanese patient, because he now speaks Arabic.

"Whether it's knowing someone's language, knowing a little bit more about someone's culture, that enhances the doctor patient relationship," Muller says.

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Medical School At Mt. Sinai Pays More Attention To Humanities

State-of-the-art medical school and integrated transit station will anchor vibrant mixed-use district.

Buffalo and New York, NY (PRWEB) April 10, 2013

The seven-story medical school will bring 2,000 UB faculty, staff and students daily to downtown Buffalo and, at more than 500,000-square-feet, will be one of the largest buildings constructed in Buffalo in decades. HOKs design features two L-shaped structures linked to create a six-story, light-filled glass atrium that includes connecting bridges and a stairway. Serving as the buildings main interior avenue, the atrium will be naturally illuminated by skylights and two glass walls, one along Washington Street and one at the terminus of Allen Street.

The building, which HOK is designing for LEED Gold certification, will have a facade clad with a high-performance terra-cotta rain-screen and a glass curtain wall system that brings daylight deep inside.

Incorporating the NFTA Allen Street transit hub into the medical schools ground floor provides convenient mass transit access, furthering the development of a sustainable, vibrant community.

The new medical school will help the university achieve objectives critical to the UB 2020 strategic plan: creation of a world-class medical school, recruitment of outstanding faculty-physicians to the university and transformation of the region into a major destination for innovative medical care and research.

The new design allows us to grow our class size from 140 to 180, educating more physicians, many of whom will practice in the region, said Michael E. Cain, MD, vice president for health sciences at UB and dean of the medical school. It allows UB to hire more talented faculty, bringing to this community much-needed clinical services and medical training programs.

HOKs design for UBs medical school creates the heart for the new Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus while integrating and connecting to the surrounding communities," said Kenneth Drucker, FAIA, design principal for the project and design director for HOKs New York office. "The buildings atrium will be the focal point for bringing together clinical, basic sciences and educational uses fostering collaboration.

The buildings first two floors will house multipurpose educational and community spaces for medical school and community outreach programs.

A second-floor bridge will link to the new John R. Oishei Childrens Hospital and the Conventus medical office building under construction along High Street adjacent to UBs new medical school.

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University at Buffalo Unveils HOK Design for Downtown Medical School

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By Chris Reidy, Globe Staff

The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center, a quasi-public state agency, announced Monday that about $9 million in grants are being allocated to Boston Childrens Hospital and Harvard Medical School to renovate research labs.

Timothy P. Murray. File photo. ( David L Ryan/Globe Staff)

Additional grants ranging from $50,000 to $200,000 have been also set aside for Bunker Hill Community College, Quincy College, and Regis College.

In all, the center said it announced more than $9.35 million in grants to support life-sciences-related capital projects in the Greater Boston area.

The Massachusetts Life Sciences Center is charged with investing $1 billion over a 10-year period to support the growth of the states life sciences industries. The initiative is a priority for the administration of Governor Deval Patrick.

In a statement, Lieutenant Governor Timothy Murray said, This funding is part of the Massachusetts Life Sciences Centers overall efforts to collaborate with academia and the business community to enhance research, workforce training, and job creation in the life sciences.

The $4 million grant awarded to Boston Childrens Hospital will help establish the Childrens Center for Cell Therapy and support lab renovations that will allow additional cell culturing facilities and a robotics area designed to perform highly specialized chemical screening on stem cells, the center said in its press release.

With its $5 million grant, Harvard Medical School seeks to create a Laboratory of Systems Pharmacology that will be a multidisciplinary incubator for providing better clinical trial information in the drug development process, the release said.

Grants were also given to vocational schools and high schools with the goal of furthering access to the so-called STEM subjects of science, technology, engineering, and math. Schools in line to receive grants include Norfolk County Agricultural High School, Quincy High School, and Revere High School, the center said.

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Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School to receive life sciences grants

When Amar Sidhu graduated from Tulane Medical School in 1999 at the top of his class, his focus was on medicine, and his acting aspirations were put on hold.

Film is something I wanted to do as a high school student, but I grew up in Seattle as a practical thinker, Sidhu said. I have a great love for science and I decided to pursue medicine. By the time I got into medical school, I had a goal to be the best doctor I could be.

Now, 14 years later, Sidhu balances his time between two full-time jobs, one as a doctor and one as an actor and producer.

In 2008, Sidhu founded Ancient Arrow Films, his independent production company, and in 2009, he produced and starred in Aakhari Decision, a Bollywood action film. The movie was released in India and North America in 2010.

In an autobiographical article he wrote for Filmmaker Magazine, Sidhu said he used the profits from Aakhari Decision to finance his second film, The Black Russian, which is being submitted to the Los Angeles Film Festival and Toronto International Film Festival this year. His next project will be Winters Dream, a post-apocalyptic story set in 2177.

Sidhu said he did not expect his side job to be so successful.

Acting is my passion and why I jumped into the film production world in the first place, Sidhu wrote in his article. Yes, I want to make the best films possible, but I also want to create quality films I can act in. Eventually, other directors and producers will see my work and other doors will open.

In addition to pursuing his passion for film, he also practices as a prominent dermasurgeon at his private practice in southern California, Foothill Dermatology.

Ive learned to juggle my schedule, and its very rewarding, Sidhu said. It boils down to time management. You get to be really good at it in medical school.

Sidhu was the president of the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society, an organization that invites the top 10 percent of medical students.

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Medical School graduate Amar Sidhu produces and stars in upcoming film

Kim Hood wondered why her granddaughter, Isabella Feinauer, drew nothing but spiked lines on dozens of sheets of paper. Isabella, then 3 or 4 years old, was mimicking something she'd seen in her little brother's hospital room: EKGs.

Isabella had watched the readouts on medical machines while her brother, who was born with a congenital heart defect, was being treated. Now 12, Isabella has no doubt she wants to be a pediatric cardiologist when she grows up.

[Find ways to pay for medical school.]

It's hard to predict what children want to be when they grow up, but parents who think their child could become a doctor need to start saving now, whether the child is 3 years old or 16, says Lisa Featherngill, managing director of planning with wealth management firm Abbot Downing.

According to a survey of student tuition and fees by the Association of American Medical Colleges, the median cost in 2012-2013 for first year students at public medical schools is $54,625 per year for out-of-state students and $32,197 for in-state students, which includes tuition, fees and health insurance. First year students at private schools had median tuition, fees and health insurance costs of $50,078 for resident and $50,768 for nonresident students the same year.

While many parents can't afford the potential $200,000 bill for medical school, they can follow these tips.

1. Start saving early: While starting to save as early as possible for college costs is always important, medical school is more expensive and parents will need the additional time for money to grow via interest and investment earnings, Featherngill says.

This often means waiting to move the money from riskier investments that have higher growth potential to safer investments like short-term bonds and money market funds until students are undergraduates, since the money won't be needed for a few more years.

[Discover how to attend med school for free.]

As soon as Isabella's parents realized their child wanted to study medicine, they opened a Utah Education Savings Plan, a tax-advantaged college savings account known as a 529 plan. "Really, at such a young age she was so passionate about being a pediatric heart doctor," says Diane Feinauer, Isabella's mother. "We knew we had to start saving."

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Start Saving for Medical School With a 529 Plan

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Mallory Burdette has crossed paths with the great Serena Williams. She's said hi.

But I've never had a conversation with her, Burdette said.

As the latest young American to pull a Family Circle Cup upset, the 22-year-old former Stanford All-American gets a dream-come-true shot at the world's top-ranked player today.

Burdette took a deep breath Wednesday after a 3-6, 7-6, 7-5 victory over No. 15 seed Sabine Lisicki. She pumped her left fist a few times and took a sweet walk across green clay on the Althea Gibson Court for a handshake from the former Family Circle Cup champion.

Burdette upset then-No. 27 Tamira Paszek at Indian Wells last month, but this was just as special, probably more. Lisicki, famed for her power serve, is currently No. 41 but has been ranked as high as No. 12.

Burdette is from Jackson, Ga., approximately 50 miles southeast of Atlanta. Her mother, the former Judy Bernat, grew up in Charleston.

We've had a lot of fun going out to dinner, Burdette said. I just feel very relaxed and comfortable here. That's the same way I was feeling out on the court, and I think it definitely helped me pull through that match. I'm really looking forward to my next round. It will be a great experience to play Serena and see how my game matches up against the best.

Opportunities like this are exactly why Burdette decided last summer to skip her senior year at Stanford. Yes, she is delaying entry to medical school and a career as a psychiatrist.

But win or lose against Serena, Burdette will shoot up the WTA rankings from No. 99.

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Medical school can wait: No. 1 Serena Williams next for rising star Mallory Burdette

$3 million grant will strengthen and augment schools successful programs that prepare students for health professions

By Iqbal Pittalwala on April 3, 2013

Imagining Your Future in Medicine addresses student needs that are distinctive at each phase of the path toward becoming a physician.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. The School of Medicine at the University of California, Riverside has been awarded a grant of $3 million over a two-year period from health care provider Kaiser Permanente Southern California to increase the size and reach of the schools existing pipeline programs a continuum of student enrichment and academic support programs and thus broaden and diversify the pool of students applying to medical school.

Imagining Your Future in Medicine, the theme of the augmented pipeline programs, addresses student needs that are distinctive at each phase of the path toward becoming a physician middle school, high school, community college, university and medical school. It extends beyond the School of Medicines two signature pipeline programs, the Medical Scholars Program and FastStart, which focus on the undergraduate phase of the medical education continuum.

This timely and generous support from Kaiser Permanente Southern California will help us vastly expand the capabilities of the medical school and inspire more young students in Inland Southern California to become service-minded physicians, said G. Richard Olds, the founding dean of the School of Medicine and the vice chancellor for health affairs. Best of all, the gift will allow us to reach students even in middle schools, engage them early in the sciences and prepare them for admission to medical school and eventually health-related careers.

G. Richard Olds is the founding dean of the UC Riverside School of Medicine. Photo credit: UCR Strategic Communications.

By integrating pipeline programs for middle school, high school and community college students in Inland Southern California, Imagining Your Future in Medicine aims to ultimately bring greater diversity to the Inland Southern California physician workforce, which currently does not reflect the ethnic fabric of the region. Its activities, such as academic and career enrichment tactics, parental involvement and financial support, are specifically designed to enhance students eligibility for entry into medical school.

Imagining Your Future in Medicine strives to maintain continuity between the individual pipeline programs, leading to sustained student engagement and retention into and through completion of medical school. Once students join the pipeline, the medical school will provide a seamless pathway for academic preparation and enrichment, preparing students for entry into medical training and ultimately residency, particularly in primary care and short-supply specialties.

Our model of outreach and engagement begins at an earlier stage than most models because we believe that if we are to effectively prepare students for successful admission to medical school, we must begin focusing our efforts when they are just starting to formulate ideas about their futures as their life aspirations begin to take shape, said Neal Schiller, the senior associate dean for student affairs at the School of Medicine.

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Kaiser Permanente Southern California Supports UCR Medical School ’s Aims to Build Diverse Physician Workforce in ...

Newswise New Brunswick, NJ Jeanne Ferrante, MD, MPH, associate professor of family medicine and community health at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, has been selected by the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (SFTM) to receive the 2013 STFM Best Research Paper Award.

The international competition is designed to acknowledge the best research published by an SFTM member in a peer-reviewed journal. Awards are based on the quality of research, as well as its potential impact. This year, the Society is recognizing Dr. Ferrante for her work with collaborators at University of South Florida and Harvard University regarding Medicare beneficiaries with colon cancer.

In the study, published in Archives of Internal Medicine, Dr. Ferrante and her team examined the relationship between primary care utilization and colorectal cancer screenings, the stage at which Medicare beneficiaries are diagnosed, mortality resulting from colorectal cancer, and all causes of mortality. The study indicated that Medicare beneficiaries with colorectal cancer had better outcomes (earlier stage at diagnosis, lower colorectal cancer mortality, and lower overall mortality) if they had a greater number of visits to primary care physicians before their diagnosisunderscoring the importance of adequate access to primary care providers, particularly for Medicare beneficiaries.

We congratulate Dr. Ferrante on her selection for this prestigious award, says Alfred F. Tallia, MD, MPH, professor and chair, Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. She joins a long list of prominent researchers who have been honored since the awards inception.

A resident of Morristown, Dr. Ferrante also is a member of The Robert Wood Johnson Medical Groupthe faculty practice of Robert Wood Johnson Medical Schooland has been a member of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey faculty since 2001. She joined Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in 2007. She was director of the Postdoctoral Health Services Fellowship Program in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health and is currently the director of the New Jersey Primary Care Research Network. She is particularly interested in the areas of cancer prevention and womens health and focuses her research on obesity and cancer screenings in primary care, as well as promoting and demonstrating primary cares role in improving health outcomes and decreasing disparities.

During her tenure at UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School, Dr. Ferrante was chair of the cancer control committee at the University Hospital, Newark; coordinator for community outreach for the University Hospitals Cancer Program; a member of the Cervical Cancer Workgroup, Task Force on Prevention, Early Detection and Treatment of Cancer in New Jersey; and a member of the New Jersey Obesity Prevention Task Force.

Previously, she served as director of predoctoral education at University of South Florida, and director of the High Risk Breast Cancer Clinic at H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute.

After earning her medical degree from Thomas Jefferson University, Dr. Ferrante completed her residency at Franklin Square Hospital in Baltimore and served in the United States Air Force during Desert Storm. She completed fellowship trainings at Duke University School of Medicine, University of Missouri, and the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center and Research Institute. She received her masters degree in public health from UMDNJ-School of Public Health.

Dr. Ferrante will receive her award at the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine Annual Spring Conference in Baltimore, May 1-5.

About UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical SchoolAs one of the nation's leading comprehensive medical schools, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School is dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in education, research, health care delivery, and the promotion of community health. Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, the medical school's principal affiliate, comprise one of the nation's premier academic medical centers. In addition, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School has 34 other hospital affiliates and ambulatory care sites throughout the region.

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Robert Wood Johnson Medical School 's Dr. Jeanne Ferrante to Receive Best Research Paper Award

Ben Carson, the neurosurgeon-turned-conservative-pundit, has accumulated legions of right-leaning fans since he stumped at the National Prayer Breakfast in February and, later, began appearing on Fox News Channel. But after delivering widely condemned comments regarding gay peopleon Fox this week, a group of students at Johns Hopkins, where Carson has worked since 1977, has successfully stopped Carson from speakingat the May commencement ceremonyof the university's medical school.Carson announced on MSNBCFriday afternoon that he would refrain from speaking because he thought the ceremony should be devoted to students, and not the controversy swirling around him:

Carson's withdrawal comes days after he appeared onSean Hannity's eponymous Fox News show Wednesday night:

Did you catch that? Here's what he said (bolding ours): "My thoughts are that marriage is between a man and a woman. It's a well-established, fundamental pillar of society and no group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality. It doesn't matter what they are. They don't get to change the definition."

Understandably, this prompted at least one student club at John Hopkins's medical school to question whether Carson is an appropriate avatar for their commencement ceremonies. Their petition to remove Carson from the ceremony reads, in part:

At the time of his nomination, Dr. Carson was known to most of us as a world-class neurosurgeon and passionate advocate for education. Many of us had read his books and looked up to him as a role model in our careers.

Since then, however, several public events have cast serious doubt on the appropriateness of having Dr. Carson speak at our graduation.

After listing a series of incidents beginning with Carson's rejection of evolutionary theory on the grounds that it implies a total rejection of "moral codes" the pitch continues:

We retain the highest respect for Dr. Carson's achievements and value his right to publicly voice political views. Nevertheless, we feel that these expressed values are incongruous with the values of Johns Hopkins and deeply offensive to a large proportion our student body.

As a result, we believe he is an inappropriate choice of speaker at a ceremony intended to celebrate the achievements of our class. We hope the administration of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine will select an alternative speaker that better represents the values of our student body and of our great University.

It's an awkward situation, even after Carson's decision to withdraw from speaking duties. With apologies to Sanjay Gupta, Carson is likely the most high-profile neurosurgeon of the moment, but continues to receive attention not for his medical accomplishments such as operating on conjoined twins but his nascent, gaffe-prone political career. (During his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference in mid-March, Carson suggested that he was considering a run for political office.) To that end, Carson might as well have dropped out because he's pretty busy, doing hits on cable television with a regularity usually seen by political operatives and seasoned talking heads. With that kind of schedule, who has time to write an uplifting speech or even deliver one?

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Dr. Ben Carson, GOP Hero, Exiled by His Own Medical School

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Dr. Mark Doubrava speaks at an editorial board meeting at the Las Vegas Sun offices on Tuesday, March 26,2013.

By Paul Takahashi (contact)

Published Thursday, March 28, 2013 | 2 a.m.

Updated 4 hours, 39 minutes ago

Regent Mark Doubrava's proposal for a new medical school at UNLV likely will exacerbate longstanding north-south tensions in higher education amid a fierce debate over equitable funding for Nevada's seven colleges and universities.

Doubrava a local ophthalmologist who specializes in cornea transplants recently announced his plans for Nevada's higher education leaders to explore the possibility of a second state-funded medical school that would exclusively serve Southern Nevada.

Currently, four-year medical students at the University of Nevada School of Medicine located at UNR complete their classwork in Reno during their first two years of study. Some students then move to Las Vegas to complete their medical clerkship at University Medical Center during their final two years.

Despite recent efforts to increase the medical school's presence in Southern Nevada from purchasing a house in Las Vegas for Dean Tom Schwenk to proposing a $220 million academic center near UMC the Nevada System of Higher Education hasn't done enough for the medical and patient communities in Southern Nevada, Doubrava said.

A medical school at UNLV would help solve Las Vegas' doctor shortage and improve the quality of health care in the state's population center, Doubrava said. In a city marred by a hepatitis C scandal and substandard hospital care, a dedicated medical school also would help train and elevate the local physician community, he added.

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Regent's idea for Las Vegas-based medical school has merit and drawbacks, observers say

With only 20,000 new M.D.'s graduating each year to help care for a nation of over 310 million people, optimizing their education is critical.

NatShots Photography/Flickr

The medical school interview season has just concluded. Each year, approximately 45,000 students vie for approximately 20,000 first-year positions at U.S. M.D.-granting medical schools. Most of these students will not have gained admission, and if they wish to become physicians they will need to seek medical education outside the U.S., pursue an alternate degree such as a DO (doctor of osteopathy), or improve their grade point averages and test scores and apply again next year. At the other end of the spectrum, many fortunate students face the task of choosing between multiple schools.

With only 20,000 new M.D.'s emerging each year to help care for a nation of over 310 million people, these are momentous choices. Every graduate counts, and where students go to school can powerfully shape the kinds of physicians they become. What factors should count the most in choosing a medical school?

One important factor is clearly reputation, often expressed in the form of rankings. A number of publications and websites purport to rank the 140 U.S. M.D.-granting schools on factors such as research funding, publications by faculty, selectivity in admissions, the average grade point averages and test scores of accepted students, and a difficult-to-quantify prestige factor associated with the school itself or the larger university of which it is a part. While it is fashionable to downplay such rankings, many schools, particularly those that are highly ranked or moving up, tend to trumpet them loudly.

Such rankings do mean something. For one thing, being associated with an elite institution probably opens doors throughout the remainder of a physician's career, and there is real benefit to training with top students. In some cases, however, the reputation exceeds the reality. Education is not the only factor in the rankings, and research prowess does not necessarily equate to teaching excellence. And while there may be a real difference between the number one and number 100 schools, it is questionable whether there is any real difference between the number 20 and 30 schools.

Another increasingly important factor is cost. The median cost of a 4-year medical education is now over $265,000. Over 85 percent of students graduate in debt, and the average indebtedness is over $160,000. Due to accumulating interest on loans, most students will need to pay back considerably more. There is some evidence that this high level of indebtedness is influencing students' decisions about which medical fields to enter, placing a premium on ones that offer a higher income and steering students away from fields in which the need is greatest, such as the primary care specialties.

The most important issue in choosing a school should not be cost but value: the ratio of quality over price. Some offshore medical schools that function as "last resorts" are able to charge very high tuition. On the other hand, the tuition at some top-flight public medical schools is relatively low. Of course, tuition isn't the only factor contributing to cost, and students also need take into account differences in cost of living between locales. Also, many students get married or have children during or shortly after school, which can further magnify the importance of the cost factor.

Students and their families and advisors tend to spend too much time thinking about rankings and costs, in part because they are easily quantified. Whether such quantitative factors are really valid or not, the numbers seem to make it easy to compare schools against each other. But merely relying on an aggregate value score (ranking/cost or something to this effect) would leave out vital features that deserve to be taken seriously. For lack of a better term, we aggregate these factors under a general category that we call "culture."

Some might assume that, because culture cannot be quantified, it is somehow soft rather than hard, subjective rather than objective, and ultimately, far less reliable than quantitative measures. Yet we should bear in mind that though many of the most important aspects of our lives are similarly non-quantifiable, we do not rely on them any less. For example, imagine choosing a spouse based strictly on quantitative measures. What would we measure -- body mass index, IQ, and expected lifetime earnings? Most would find any such ranking ridiculous.

Excerpt from:

What Makes a Medical School Great?

KENNEWICK, Wash.-- Hospitals in the Tri-Cities continue to expand their reach. Now, they're looking to attract new medical school students to the area to meet the increasing demand for doctors.

Kennewick General Hospital announced Monday that they're starting a residency program for medical students.

It's the first in the Tri-Cities and is just the beginning of more medical programs to come.

Medical residents are the future of health care and local hospitals want them to come here.

After four years of medical school, students must complete a three year residency.

Now, Kennewick General Hospital is setting up the first residency program in the region.

Doctors say residents not only make good future employees but they also improve patient care.

"It is always better patient care when you have residents and medical students in training in hospitals and it keeps physicians up to date and in touch with academic medicine," said Dr. Mahmoud Al-Hawamdeh, Kennewick General Hospital.

KGH hopes student doctors will stay here once they complete their education.

The demand for health care in the Tri-Cities is expanding and many doctors are retiring, which puts a strain on the system. Residencies could change that.

Continued here:

KGH Announces New Medical School Residency Program

State Sen. Richard Roth, D-Riverside, told a group of about 80 people at a town hall meeting Tuesday, March 26, that he plans to bring $15 million in annual state funding to the UC Riverside School of Medicine.

I intend to deliver that $15 million by the end of this term, somehow, Roth said.

The new medical school will open this fall with a class of 50 students. The state funding, if it materializes, would allow the school to operate at full capacity and admit classes of 80 students in the future. The once-promised funding was pulled two years ago in the midst of the states budget crisis. The loss of the money caused a one-year delay in opening the new school.

Roth told the crowd that funding the School of Medicine is his top priority. He predicted the school eventually will draw biotech businesses to Riverside, bringing more jobs and boosting the local economy. He said he would work to incentivize the creation of such businesses.

It will impact you greatly, he said of the new school.

People who attended the meeting brought other issues to Roths attention. After a brief talk on the medical school, veterans issues and a bill he is sponsoring on budget transparency, Roth opened up the discussion. None of questions dealt with UC Riverside.

Several people said they were concerned about the World Logistics Center, a massive warehouse complex planned south of Highway 60 in eastern Moreno Valley. They said they worry about pollution from increased truck traffic and how close to schools those trucks would be traveling.

Issues such as that are local issues, Roth said. The last thing we want is Sacramento (getting involved).

The discussion of the warehouse project brought up concerns about the California Environmental Quality Act and how it was being used, or possibly misused, to hold up some development. A number of bills modifying the act are being considered in the state Legislature, and Gov. Jerry Brown has said he would like to see the act overhauled.

Roth said he sees CEQAs value in making sure environmental issues are taken into consideration when a new project is under consideration.

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MORENO VALLEY: Roth vows to fund medical school

Newswise New Brunswick, N.J. A veteran journalist and advocate for clear and accurate reporting of healthcare issues for consumers, Gary Schwitzer, will be the featured speaker at the annual Mates David and Hinna Stahl Memorial Lecture on Bioethics, a free community seminar at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School to be held at 4 p.m., Tuesday, April 23, 2013, at the Clinical Academic Building, room 1302, 125 Paterson Street, New Brunswick.

Mr. Schwitzer is publisher of HealthNewsReview.org, leading a team of more than two dozen people who grade daily health news reporting by major U.S. news organizations. In its first year, the project was honored with several journalism industry awards - the Mirror Award, honoring those who hold a mirror to their own industry for the publics benefit, and the Knight-Batten Award for Innovations in Journalism. His blog - which is embedded within HealthNewsReview.org - was voted 2009 Best Medical Blog in competition hosted by Medgadget.com.

From 2001-2010, he was a tenured professor on the faculty of the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota, teaching health journalism and media ethics. He left that position to devote his full time to his online publishing work.

As part of his long career, Mr. Schwitzer was the founding Editor-In-Chief of the MayoClinic.com consumer health web site, and was a medical news reporter at major media outlets in the U.S., including CNN, where he served as head of the medical news unit. He served two terms as a member of the board of directors of the Association of Health Care Journalists for which he authored the organizations Statement of Principles. For that organization he also wrote a guide on how to report on medical research studies.

Schwitzer has written about the state of health journalism in JAMA, BMJ, the American Journal of Bioethics, the Journal of Medical Internet Research, PLoS Medicine, Nieman Reports, Quill, Columbia Journalism Review, Poynter.org, The Daily Beast, The American Editor, and MayoClinic.com. In 2009, the Kaiser Family Foundation published and distributed his white paper on The State of US Health Journalism.

The endowed lecture is named in honor of Mates David and Hinna Stahl, parents of Theodore J. Stahl, MD, clinical professor of radiology and medicine. This is the sixteenth lecture in the annual series. Parking is available at the Paterson Street deck, adjacent to the Clinical Academic Building. For more information, directions and to RSVP for the seminar, call 732-235-5810 or visit http://rwjms.umdnj.edu.

About UMDNJ-ROBERT WOOD JOHNSON MEDICAL SCHOOL As one of the nations leading comprehensive medical schools, UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School is dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in education, research, health care delivery, and the promotion of community health. In cooperation with Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, the medical schools principal affiliate, they comprise one of the nation's premier academic medical centers. In addition, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School has 34 other hospital affiliates and ambulatory care sites throughout the region.

As one of the eight schools of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey with 2,800 full-time and volunteer faculty, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School encompasses 22 basic science and clinical departments, hosts centers and institutes including The Cancer Institute of New Jersey, the Child Health Institute of New Jersey, the Center for Advanced Biotechnology and Medicine, the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute, and the Stem Cell Institute of New Jersey. The medical school maintains educational programs at the undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate levels for more than 1,500 students on its campuses in New Brunswick, Piscataway, and Camden, and provides continuing education courses for health care professionals and community education programs. To learn more about UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, log on to rwjms.umdnj.edu. Find our fan page at http://www.Facebook.com/RWJMS and follow us on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/RWJMS.

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UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School Hosts Expert on Healthcare Journalism and Media