Hey guys, I dont know if many of you that have had interviews already at TCOM heard anything about this... But I know it plays a big part in my decision to ultimately go to TCOM if accepted, so I figured that you guys should know about it. When I was a graduate student at UNTHSC, there was a lot of talk about doing this, and the med students were very upset. Looks like they are moving ahead with their plan anyway... Note: this is not meant to start an argument! Play nice!!! It's just for your information!
August 19, 2010
Students, Faculty, Staff and Alumni:
The University of North Texas System Board of Regents today voted to approve a proposal to develop a new MD degree program at the UNT Health Science Center at Fort Worth (UNTHSC). The MD program will be housed in an independent fifth school in addition to the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, School of Public Health, and School of Health Professions.
Approval comes upon completion of pre-approval requirements that the Board of Regents directed UNTHSC leadership to accomplish at the Regents November 2009 meeting. The requirements were to secure all necessary start-up funding from the community, establish a business plan for the new school, ensure commitments to secure a strong future for all existing programs, and confirm relationships with area hospitals for student rotations and graduate training.
The following summarizes the proposal and what our Board has approved:
The Need: Texas has requested the expansion of medical education training to meet current and projected physician shortages. In response, UNTHSC has already grown its existing medical class at TCOM from 115 in the Class of 2005 to 220 in the Class of 2014. Our challenge is to ensure TCOM continues to be a leader in the education of family and rural practitioners without having entering medical class sizes exceed best practices for a quality education. Our recently constructed facilities are designed to handle larger medical classes and we are committed to expanding in order to provide more doctors of all types.
The Proposal: UNTHSC proposes to add a fifth school to its campus that will offer the MD degree. We propose to enroll not more than 100 MD students in fiscal year 2014 after accreditation and planning are complete. We have committed to build upon and support the continued development and success of the other four existing colleges. Our long-term goal is to strengthen our existing schools while adding programs that benefit the State and provide new educational opportunities for future students.
Cost and Local Donations: Over the past two years, UNTHSC has conducted extensive fiscal and academic planning to determine how our existing infrastructure could support two separately accredited medical programs at one location. With this unique sharing opportunity, the comprehensive business and academic plan estimates the start-up costs for starting the new MD program will total $21.5 million. Our Board of Regents gave us the challenge to raise these funds privately and we
are very proud that we have successfully obtained firm and credible local pledges of financial support of $25 million to cover the initial incremental and all start-up costs. Beginning in five years, the only cost to the State of Texas will be the usual and appropriate costs associated with additional Texas medical students. This innovative private-public proposal is particularly of interest in difficult financial times as it will benefit the state by allowing the local community to provide all start-up costs for the new medical school.
Benefit: UNTHSC wants to enable as many of its graduates as possible to remain in Texas for their medical practice. Fort Worth area hospitals have indicated an enthusiasm for partnering with UNTHSC to bring both MD and DO students and faculty onto their hospital campuses for undergraduate medical education. This will allow hospitals to expand their resource commitments to graduate medical education, which is the area that will help attract and keep the most new doctors in Texas. We have written clinical education partnership agreements (as well as financial pledges) from Texas Health Resources, Tarrant County Hospital District, Baylor Health System, HCA North Texas/Plaza Medical Center, and Cook Childrens Health System.
Next steps: Years ago, language was adopted in the UNTHSC authorizing statute preventing the issuance of an MD degree by the UNT System in Fort Worth. This is the only medical school in Texas with a degree restriction of any kind. We intend to ask the Texas Legislature to remove this restriction and authorize the formation of an MD degree-granting medical school at UNTHSC. We will then work with the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) to earn full accreditation of the new program.
The Fort Worth community views this opportunity as a logical progression building on the UNTHSCs 40-year history of innovation, growth and success. The community has demonstrated tremendous commitment, which now allows us to bring this proposal forward with no incremental start-up cost to the state.
We believe this is a win-win for Texas, for Fort Worth, for UNTHSC, for TCOM, and for our future students and doctors who will serve our state.
Sincerely,
C. Dan Smith
Chairman, UNT System Board of Regents
Lee Jackson
Chancellor, UNT System
Scott B. Ransom, DO, MBA, MPH
President, UNT Health Science Center
But I guess it was nice of them to call, I definetely wasnt expecting it tho
