19-04-2012 17:50 Secrets unleashed.

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How to Get into Medical School Part 2 - Video

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. (WOFL FOX 35) - Orange County Fire Rescue was called to Ridgewood Park Elementary school Tuesday morning after several students handled a medical lancet that was brought to school by a student from the home of a diabetic family member.

Orange County Fire Rescue says 13 students handled the lancet which is designed for single use and cannot be used a second time to reduce cross-contamination from reused sharps. Four students were treated by Orange County Fire Rescue and the parents of the students who treated were called to the school and declined transportation to the hospital. Officials say none of the other students were stuck by the lancets and their parents were notified.

Orange County Fire Rescue has a long standing program for properly disposing of medical sharps. Sharps can be brought to any Orange County Fire Station when firefighters are present. They will safely dispose of the sharps and give you a safe container to store additional sharps for disposal. For more information you can visit http://www.orangecountyfl.net and follow the links for "Emergency and Safety".

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Student brings medical needles to school

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Austin is a giant step closer to gaining a new teaching hospital and medical school.

The Seton Healthcare Family announced they want to supply the $250 million to pay for it.

Officials with the group of hospitals said it would be enough to replace the aging University Medical Center Brackenridge in Downtown Austin.

"The teaching hospital of tomorrow is going to look very different than the hospital of today, or even the hospital that we see there," said Seton Healthcare Family Board Chairman Charles Barnett.

Officials said they will need more land around the University of Texas at Austin to build the teaching hospital and medical school.

The facility will have a more modern look, like Dell Children's Medical Center, which incorporates more natural light and wider hallways that are easier to navigate.

But beyond the architectural design, Seton and Central Health officials said it will transform local health care for the next 30 years and deliver services in a new way.

"How many of you want to be a patient? Any hands?" Barnett asked a group of reporters. "People would much prefer to be treated in an outpatient setting."

Seton officials said they expect Central Texas hospital visits to go down 20- to 40 percent throughout the next 10 years.

That means fewer emergency room visits and more patients receiving care in the comfort of their own home.

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New medical school complex on horizon

A question many medical school applicants ask themselves--or are asked by premedical advisers--is whether to apply to allopathic (M.D.) or osteopathic (D.O.) schools, or to both. The few premeds who are even aware of D.O. schools may be struggle when they try to tailor their applications to the two different types of curricula and career paths.

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How to Decide Between an M.D. and a D.O

WORCESTER, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

UHealthSolutions, Inc., a University of Massachusetts Medical School affiliate, is piloting enhanced patient communications services for community health centers through a new partnership with the Edward M. Kennedy Community Health Center (Kennedy CHC). The two organizations will work collaboratively to design and develop a suite of services targeted toward the needs of community-based health care organizations.

UHealthSolutions, a nonprofit company that manages business operations for health care organizations, will provide the Kennedy CHC with after-hours answering services, patient scheduling, and outbound appointment reminder calls giving the Kennedy CHC clinicians and support staff more time to engage with patients and provide patient care. UHealthSolutions is committed to promoting a culturally competent and linguistically diverse workforce to ensure an engaged experience for patients. The opportunity to partner with the Kennedy CHC will provide valuable insight to UHealthSolutions in the design and implementation of enhanced patient communications services for community-based health care organizations.

I am excited to start this relationship with the Edward M. Kennedy Community Health Center, said David P. Crosby, managing director, UHealthSolutions. This collaborative approach ensures that the patient is at the center of all communications, and allows health center staff to do what they do best provide exceptional patient care.

This new relationship will allow us to realign resources and focus our attention on the patient, said Antonia G. McGuire, Kennedy CHC president and chief executive officer. Kennedy CHC is a private, nonprofit community health center that serves over 100 communities in the greater Worcester and Metrowest areas. I look forward to working with Dave and the UHealthSolutions team to create and deliver additional communications services to better serve our patients.

About UHealthSolutions, Inc.

As a nonprofit affiliate of the University of Massachusetts Medical School, UHealthSolutions, Inc., takes a different approach to developing innovative, effective and cost-saving business solutions for health care clients. UHealthSolutions uses evidence-based methods and a clinical focus to assess the needs of health care organizations.

Formerly known as Public Sector Partners, UHealthSolutions is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit health care management and consulting firm. Since 2001, the organization has been committed to improving health care services by offering a full array of third-party administration, patient communication, program management, technology and consulting services.

About the University of Massachusetts Medical School

UMass Medical School, one of the fastest growing academic health science centers in the country, has built a reputation as a world-class research institution, consistently producing noteworthy advances in clinical and basic research. The Medical School attracts more than $270 million in research funding annually, 80 percent of which comes from federal funding sources. The mission of the Medical School is to advance the health and well-being of the people of the commonwealth and the world, through pioneering education, research, public service and health care delivery. Commonwealth Medicine, the Medical Schools health care consulting and operations division, provides a wide range of care management and consulting services to government agencies and health care organizations. For more information, visit commed.umassmed.edu.

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UHealthSolutions to Provide Patient Communications Services to Edward M. Kennedy Community Health Center in New Pilot ...

CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) - University of Miami President Donna Shalala has but medical school staff on notice that "significant" cutbacks are coming.

Shalala announced the cuts in a letter to employees on Tuesday.

She says the reductions are necessary because of a number of "unprecedented factor" that include the economic downturn of 2008, decreased funding for research and clinical care and cuts in the Jackson Health System. She says the Jackson Health reductions have affected the school's finances.

The Miami Herald (http://bit.ly/I4JSlg ) reports Jackson Health, which has lost $419 million the past three years, cut its payments to the university by $16 million this year.

Shalala says the cuts will come in May. She did not provide details about how many employees may be laid off.

Information from: The Miami Herald, http://www.herald.com

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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UM medical school to make cutbacks in May

by Ken Alltucker - Apr. 24, 2012 11:17 PM The Republic | azcentral.com

Medical schools in Arizona more than doubled their enrollment in the past decade, but most of those young doctors won't establish a practice in your neighborhood or work at a local hospital.

That is because most students who graduate from Arizona medical schools train out of state, and physicians are more likely to establish careers where they complete their residency training during those pivotal years after medical school.

One key reason that medical-school graduates leave Arizona is that the state does not have enough residency slots at hospitals or community health centers that allow doctors to train and practice their craft after graduating. The shortage has been made worse by a federal limit on Medicare-funded slots, state funding cuts to graduate medical education and some hospitals' reluctance to start or expand training programs.

Medical-school representatives and business leaders say the physician training crunch is an issue that affects health, quality of life and the economy in Arizona, where there is an ongoing physician shortage. With two new medical schools planned, the problem could grow even larger.

"We talk about importing physicians, but we are exporting graduates," said Lori Kemper, dean of the Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine at Midwestern University of Glendale.

Kemper and other medical-school representatives met Tuesday at the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix to discuss a newly released report funded by St. Luke's Health Initiatives, a health-policy foundation, about Arizona's medical education challenges.

The report shows that Arizona ranked 20th in the nation in medical-school enrollment but 37th in the number of residency slots. The report suggests the state needs to add 848 to 885 residency slots at a cost of $89 million to $93 million to meet national averages.

If medical-school students train in Arizona, they are much more likely to practice medicine here. The St. Luke's report shows that 75 percent of active physicians who graduated and trained in Arizona stayed, while only 28 percent of Arizona medical-school graduates who completed training out of state returned to Arizona to practice.

Most residency slots are paid by the federal government through agencies such as Medicare and the Department of Veterans Affairs. The Medicare program, which provides about two-thirds of government funding for residency slots in Arizona, has capped funding of most new residency slots since 1997. Since then, Arizona's population has grown more than 25 percent.

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Exodus of medical graduates in Arizona stirs concerns

Quinnipiac University's new medical school has formed a five-year clinical affiliation with MidState Medical Center in Meriden.

Students at Quinnipiac's Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine, which is scheduled to open next year, will complete clinical rotations with required supervision at the Meriden hospital beginning in the summer of 2015.

Physicians working with the students will also be appointed clinical professors at the new medical school.

MidState Medical Center, and two or three hospitals still to be named, will supplement St. Vincent's Medical Center in Bridgeport, which has already been named the medical school's principal clinical partner.

The university plans to enroll the charter class by fall 2013.

"The School of Medicine needs high quality clinic experiences for our students. I am confident that the physicians and staff at MidState Medical Center will provide these experiences," said Dr. Bruce Koeppen, founding dean of the School of Medicine.

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Quinnipiac, MidState Medical Center sign clinical affiliation

University of Miami President Donna Shalala announced Tuesday that the medical school will take difficult and painful but necessary steps next month to reduce costs, including staff cuts.In a letter to employees, she called the cuts significant but provided no details about how many employees might be laid off.

The process will take place in stages, and affected employees will be notified during the month of May, Shalala wrote. Reductions will not impact clinical care or our patients and will primarily focus on unfunded research and administrative areas.

Shalala said the cuts were necessary because of unprecedented factors including the global downturn of 2008, decreased funding for research and clinical care, plus cutbacks in payments from Jackson Health System. The Jackson reductions have had a profound effect on our finances, she wrote.

UM is not alone. Many medical schools are having to make difficult decisions, particularly because of the growing difficulties in getting research grants, said Ann Bonham, chief scientific officer of the Association of American Medical Colleges.

Sal Barbera, a former hospital executive now teaching at Florida International University, said UM created many of its own problems when it bought Cedars Medical Center in 2007 for $275 million. Paying off that debt is a significant financial responsibility, he said.

Jackson Health System, which has lost $419 million the past three years, cut its payments to UM by $16 million this year, and next fiscal year is working on a new operating agreement with UM that could mean far more drastic reductions.

In her letter, Shalala wrote that UM reaffirmed our continued commitment to our partnership with Jackson.

Since the arrival of Pascal Goldschmidt as medical school dean in 2006, expansion has been swift. UHealth, the clinical enterprise , now employs more than 8,200 employees, according to the UM website. Employees are working on 1,500 research grants, funded by $200 million in outside private and public grants.

The schools financial problems have been exacerbated by the shrinking of federal research dollars, and UM researchers, like those elsewhere, have found themselves battling for grants.

A number of medical schools are having serious conversations and looking hard at medical research, said Bonham, the AAMC officer. She said the National Institutes of Health, the primary funding source for research, is now only granting about one in every six applications, a historical low.

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‘Significant’ UM medical school cutbacks coming in May