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- May 23, 2003
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As a Drexel Med Student (2nd year), I should respond and allay some of the fears of the premeds out there since many of you tend to overreact without knowing the situation.
First of all, Drexel has a contractual obligation w/ Tenet. What does that mean? That means that if Tenet goes bankrupt, Drexel is NOT financially liable/affected. In fact, this was one of the pros when Drexel decided to partner with Tenet (this is straight from our dean's mouth, btw). The reason why this works out so well for Drexel is that we have TONS of affiliated sites (see below) and simply losing one hospital is not going to be catastrophic. As I'm sure most premeds are NOT aware of, one of the main reasons that there are NOT more medical schools popping up around the country these days is because it is extremely costly to do so. In fact, very very few medical schools (none that I'm aware of) actually make a profit from their hospitals. And in Pennsylvania, it is even worse due to the medical malpractice crisis. ALL PA med schools are experiencing this effect (including UPenn, Temple, Jeff, PCOM, and us). In fact, another PA school that shall remain nameless, recently lost a 20 million dollar lawsuit because some of their nurses decided to white-out a couple lines of a patient's medical record! This is extremely devasting for this school and says NOTHING about the quality of education at this school. But unfortunately, this school is going to be screwed... Medical malpractice settlements are through the roof in PA and are driving alot of MDs out of practice. In fact, it is impossible for a new physican in PA to buy malpractice insurance in PA because there is NOT a single insurer that is accepting new applications at this moment, believe it or not!!!!
So the real question that all the premeds want to know is how is this going to affect me if I go to Drexel?
The short answer is that it's not really going to have much of an effect at all. Our preclinical curriculum is top notch (I have made several posts in regards to the details in the past; see post entitled "All about Drexel"). We have several clinical sites in Philadelphia and elsewhere that we do our training at (note: if you do your training outside of philadelphia, the school provides free housing).
I've included a breakdown of all of our affilated sites, all with the # of beds, and the required rotations that are available at each site. In addition, a (*) means it's in Philly or Philly area. F = family med; M = internal med; P = pediatrics; Psy = psychiatry; OG = ob/gyn; S = surgery; N = neurology)
1. Monmouth med ctr (375) = ALL
2. Allegheny gen hosp (698) = ALL except F
*3. Hahnemann hosp (430) = ALL except F, P
*4. Mercy catholic med cts (531) = M, Psy, S, N
5. Lehigh valley hosp (555) = F, M, P, N
6. eaton med ctr (369) = M, P, OG, S
7. reading hosp and med ctr (607) = F, P, OG
*8. chestnut hill hosp (184) = F, OG
*9. graduate hosp (303) = M, S
*10. montgomery hosp (178) = F, OG
*11. st christopher's hosp (183) = P
***12-19 I'm too lazy to include the other 8 sites (145-589)
*20. MCP hospital (to close 3/31/2004; 379) = all except F, P, OG
So as you all can see, there is CLEARLY no shortage of available training sites if you decide to come to Drexel. To sum up, Drexel is still financially strong, you're still going to have excellent preclinical/clinical exposure here. If you have more questions, i'll try to reply...
PS... Hahnemann hospital is actually doing very well... It is one of the few hospitals in philly that is actually doing well and is in no danger of closing!!!
First of all, Drexel has a contractual obligation w/ Tenet. What does that mean? That means that if Tenet goes bankrupt, Drexel is NOT financially liable/affected. In fact, this was one of the pros when Drexel decided to partner with Tenet (this is straight from our dean's mouth, btw). The reason why this works out so well for Drexel is that we have TONS of affiliated sites (see below) and simply losing one hospital is not going to be catastrophic. As I'm sure most premeds are NOT aware of, one of the main reasons that there are NOT more medical schools popping up around the country these days is because it is extremely costly to do so. In fact, very very few medical schools (none that I'm aware of) actually make a profit from their hospitals. And in Pennsylvania, it is even worse due to the medical malpractice crisis. ALL PA med schools are experiencing this effect (including UPenn, Temple, Jeff, PCOM, and us). In fact, another PA school that shall remain nameless, recently lost a 20 million dollar lawsuit because some of their nurses decided to white-out a couple lines of a patient's medical record! This is extremely devasting for this school and says NOTHING about the quality of education at this school. But unfortunately, this school is going to be screwed... Medical malpractice settlements are through the roof in PA and are driving alot of MDs out of practice. In fact, it is impossible for a new physican in PA to buy malpractice insurance in PA because there is NOT a single insurer that is accepting new applications at this moment, believe it or not!!!!
So the real question that all the premeds want to know is how is this going to affect me if I go to Drexel?
The short answer is that it's not really going to have much of an effect at all. Our preclinical curriculum is top notch (I have made several posts in regards to the details in the past; see post entitled "All about Drexel"). We have several clinical sites in Philadelphia and elsewhere that we do our training at (note: if you do your training outside of philadelphia, the school provides free housing).
I've included a breakdown of all of our affilated sites, all with the # of beds, and the required rotations that are available at each site. In addition, a (*) means it's in Philly or Philly area. F = family med; M = internal med; P = pediatrics; Psy = psychiatry; OG = ob/gyn; S = surgery; N = neurology)
1. Monmouth med ctr (375) = ALL
2. Allegheny gen hosp (698) = ALL except F
*3. Hahnemann hosp (430) = ALL except F, P
*4. Mercy catholic med cts (531) = M, Psy, S, N
5. Lehigh valley hosp (555) = F, M, P, N
6. eaton med ctr (369) = M, P, OG, S
7. reading hosp and med ctr (607) = F, P, OG
*8. chestnut hill hosp (184) = F, OG
*9. graduate hosp (303) = M, S
*10. montgomery hosp (178) = F, OG
*11. st christopher's hosp (183) = P
***12-19 I'm too lazy to include the other 8 sites (145-589)
*20. MCP hospital (to close 3/31/2004; 379) = all except F, P, OG
So as you all can see, there is CLEARLY no shortage of available training sites if you decide to come to Drexel. To sum up, Drexel is still financially strong, you're still going to have excellent preclinical/clinical exposure here. If you have more questions, i'll try to reply...
PS... Hahnemann hospital is actually doing very well... It is one of the few hospitals in philly that is actually doing well and is in no danger of closing!!!
