Roseman, UNLV medical schools part of new era of expansion

The founding deans of two evolving medical schools in Southern Nevada are eager to update their status so they can begin recruiting their charter classes, students who are projected to graduate with the title of medical doctor in 2021.

Officials at Roseman University of Health Sciences and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas are on roughly parallel paths toward having the capacity to teach 60 medical students each year starting in 2017. Before students walk into their first classes, Drs. Barbara Atkinson and Mark Penn, and their teams at UNLV and Roseman, respectively, face herculean tasks to realize their dreams.

Southern Nevada is in relatively rarified air with two medical schools being created in such close proximity. The two schools are part of a new era of medical school expansion in the United States, a growth spurt not seen since the late 1960s and ’70s when the number of medical schools accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education increased by half and the number of graduates from such programs doubled. Seventeen U.S. programs have received their initial year of accreditation since 2002.

UNLV and Roseman are among nine programs that have applied to be considered for LCME accreditation, which would result in a total of 150 such programs if all those goals come to fruition. In addition, 30 medical schools, including Touro University Nevada, turn out doctors of osteopathic medicine each year.

“I keep telling my team that we’re going to be between 142 and 150,” Penn told a gathering of about 25 business executives, health care professionals and educators last week at Roseman’s facility at the site of the defunct Nevada Cancer Institute in Summerlin.

Officials at Western Michigan and Central Michigan universities are creating medical schools 140 miles apart on their campuses in Kalamazoo and Mount Pleasant. Roseman’s Henderson campus is less than 12 miles away from UNLV.

STEPS TO ACCREDITATION

The accreditation process presents a series of hurdles medical school officials must cross, and some of the standards cannot be achieved until after the first students are admitted. That poses a tremendous responsibility to educators to meet the LCME’s standards so their students proceed seamlessly through medical school.

UNLV and Roseman are in applicant status for a pre-accredited medical school, a condition that’s as uncertain as it sounds. Both deans are hiring key administrators and faculty and reaching out to the public, community doctors and donors in advance of submitting to the LCME this summer their self studies, a review of all aspects of their medical education programs including what curriculum, resources, faculty and facilities will be needed. Upon acceptance of the self studies, LCME officials will visit the Southern Nevada sites, and if all goes according to plan, the schools will be granted preliminary accreditation, a major goal both programs hope to achieve by June 2016.

“The first step in the process, preliminary accreditation, is intentionally designed to be the most difficult,” said Dr. Dan Hunt, co-secretary for the LCME. “Before that happens, they can have no contact with potential students or keep any sort of list of potential students. We monitor their websites to make sure they’re following the guidelines.”

Unable to recruit students until they receive preliminary accreditation, Atkinson and Penn occupy their time in other areas in pursuit of their goal of opening the doors to students 2½ years from now. Among the public events the two have planned will be a presentation by Penn at Roseman’s facility at 11:30 a.m. March 27 and a presentation by Atkinson put on by the United Way of Southern Nevada at 8:30 a.m. March 30 in the Clark High School auditorium.

Roseman officials are in the process of converting the former cancer institute into classrooms, labs and research facilities, and UNLV plans its first classes to be taught on the campus of the VA Medical Center in North Las Vegas.

The third year in the creation of a medical school is the most challenging because that’s the point at which the LCME would grant provisional accreditation, a step needed before students can begin completing a majority of their clinical work in established medical facilities.

“You owe a lot to the students who take a chance on you that first year,” Atkinson said of the responsibility of meeting the criteria for provisional accreditation. “You want that class to be an absolutely outstanding class because how they do on standardized tests can make a difference in whether you get accreditation or not.”

TAKING RISKS

Atkinson and Penn also will be looking for risk takers among Southern Nevada physicians willing to train the first students who enroll in their schools. The goal of physician training is to have attending doctors training medical school graduates in residency and residents teaching medical students.

That’s why Atkinson and Penn also are promoting Gov. Brian Sandoval’s proposal to spend $10 million on graduate medical education in an effort to create new residency programs at hospitals and developing partnerships with officials at existing medical facilities in Southern Nevada. Penn admitted to his audience last week that doctors take a chance collaborating with such an unproven commodity as a new medical school.

The rewards of such a relationship can be equally as great because of the enrichment attending physicians gain from training the next generation of medical professionals. Dr. Jeffrey Cummings, former director of Alzheimer’s disease research at UCLA, said he took such a risk when he accepted the job as director of the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, a facility that opened less than five years ago. The Cleveland Clinic contracts with physicians a year at a time, unlike the long-term security Cummings had at UCLA.

Any uncertainty Cummings felt in taking the job running the Ruvo clinic in 2010 were long ago engulfed by the satisfaction of overseeing a facility that he expects this year to record 25,000 patient visits.

Among the agreements Roseman has made for clinical sites is the Ruvo center where some Cleveland Clinic interns and fellows complete rotations as part of their graduate medical education. Among UNLV’s agreements for clinical sites is Dignity Health Nevada and the three St. Rose hospitals in the southern end of the Las Vegas Valley.

While they keep working on all phases of creating their schools, Atkinson and Penn stay focused on their next and biggest hurdle: preliminary accreditation. And while that might not sound like a big improvement over applicant status for a pre-accredited medical school, the progress represents a sea change.

“When we reach those standards, and they give us approval,” Penn said, “then we know we are one of the best medical schools in the country.”

Contact Steven Moore at smoore@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4563.