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My first impression of this last spring was not a chance in hell.
My second impression is I guess it could be possible as a proposal down the road. With the addition of new programs in Cleveland and Florida recently, it seems to be a trend.
After a health consortium meetings held last spring, a health professional that I worked with relayed info from the meeting. They (UWL, and 2 affiliated hospitals) are currently looking for ways to better make use of the new allied health facility on campus. Apparently they strongly alluded to looking into the possiblity of starting a medical program, although it was not explicitly stated as something they were looking into.
I figured no way in hell for the reasons...
The region is already saturated with schools:
UW, MCW, Chicago (6), Champaign, UM, UM - Duluth, UIOWA.
Additionally does the population/need of WI call for three schools?
UW-L does not have the clout and would UW-Madison let this happen?
$$$ - UW budgets have been cut severly recently
Now that I am thinking about it again, why it could happen:
Possibility of a Duluth like program - <50 students/class, and maybe would join UW during the rotation years as duluth joins UM.
UWL has been desperately trying to bring their reputation to the level close to madison, and distance themselves from the rest of the UW system. A medical program would go a long way.
UWL has strong connections and already places students with Marshfield Clinic, Gundersen Lutheran Medical Centers, and Franciscan Skemp Healthcare, all are teaching hospitals.
UWL already has PA, DPT, CRNA programs, and added a M.D. to the faculty in 2003. (This M.D. is strictly academic in position, there are ~4 clinical M.D.s employed by student health)
Facility wise, the new allied health building houses many under-used lecture halls, has state of the art technology, a cadaver lab that accomodates ~60 students (4/cadaver) in the summer (dpt, pa, crna) but is not used in the school year, and La Crosse (city) is one of the 3 or 4 regional centers of the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
Gundersen Lutheran is about as ambitious as a hospital can be. With multiple residency programs and students from madison rotating there, they maybe would jump at the opportunity for affiliation.
The money generated from medical tuitions is far more than tuition for the other health programs and would go a long way to covering the costs for faculty and additional needs. Some faculty could be found within the local teaching hospitals, other health professional programs, and undergrad campus.
This possibly could allow MCW to accept a larger % of nonresidents, thus making the program more competitive, and a 2nd public medical school would further stregthen Wisconsin's already strong public eductation system.
I am not trying to pump La Crosse's name (what good would that do, especially here) nor start a flame war. Just starting a discussion that relates to the increase in amount of medical students each year in the US. Is this a good thing, or will the market eventually be flooded? What about new medical programs, adventageous or hazardous.
Again, I can't see this happening, but I can see them proposing the idea somewhere in the future.
My second impression is I guess it could be possible as a proposal down the road. With the addition of new programs in Cleveland and Florida recently, it seems to be a trend.
After a health consortium meetings held last spring, a health professional that I worked with relayed info from the meeting. They (UWL, and 2 affiliated hospitals) are currently looking for ways to better make use of the new allied health facility on campus. Apparently they strongly alluded to looking into the possiblity of starting a medical program, although it was not explicitly stated as something they were looking into.
I figured no way in hell for the reasons...
The region is already saturated with schools:
UW, MCW, Chicago (6), Champaign, UM, UM - Duluth, UIOWA.
Additionally does the population/need of WI call for three schools?
UW-L does not have the clout and would UW-Madison let this happen?
$$$ - UW budgets have been cut severly recently
Now that I am thinking about it again, why it could happen:
Possibility of a Duluth like program - <50 students/class, and maybe would join UW during the rotation years as duluth joins UM.
UWL has been desperately trying to bring their reputation to the level close to madison, and distance themselves from the rest of the UW system. A medical program would go a long way.
UWL has strong connections and already places students with Marshfield Clinic, Gundersen Lutheran Medical Centers, and Franciscan Skemp Healthcare, all are teaching hospitals.
UWL already has PA, DPT, CRNA programs, and added a M.D. to the faculty in 2003. (This M.D. is strictly academic in position, there are ~4 clinical M.D.s employed by student health)
Facility wise, the new allied health building houses many under-used lecture halls, has state of the art technology, a cadaver lab that accomodates ~60 students (4/cadaver) in the summer (dpt, pa, crna) but is not used in the school year, and La Crosse (city) is one of the 3 or 4 regional centers of the University of Wisconsin Medical School.
Gundersen Lutheran is about as ambitious as a hospital can be. With multiple residency programs and students from madison rotating there, they maybe would jump at the opportunity for affiliation.
The money generated from medical tuitions is far more than tuition for the other health programs and would go a long way to covering the costs for faculty and additional needs. Some faculty could be found within the local teaching hospitals, other health professional programs, and undergrad campus.
This possibly could allow MCW to accept a larger % of nonresidents, thus making the program more competitive, and a 2nd public medical school would further stregthen Wisconsin's already strong public eductation system.
I am not trying to pump La Crosse's name (what good would that do, especially here) nor start a flame war. Just starting a discussion that relates to the increase in amount of medical students each year in the US. Is this a good thing, or will the market eventually be flooded? What about new medical programs, adventageous or hazardous.
Again, I can't see this happening, but I can see them proposing the idea somewhere in the future.
Other than that I loved UW-L. The only med school I see happening there would be a Duluth type set-up, but who knows...
I kid, I kid. I'm at UWM, and there's no way I could ever envision them getting a med school here.
