What is going on with the NYU MSTP?

[Neuronix]

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Meanwhile, at NYU

https://www.axios.com/2025/02/11/hospital-super-bowl-ad-langone-backlash

Partial quote below

A New York City academic medical center is drawing unexpected fire from doctors, patients and others in health care for buying a pricey Super Bowl ad touting its services.

Why it matters: NYU Langone's ad comes amid heightened scrutiny of nonprofit hospitals, which don't pay federal income taxes, and as Americans' frustration with the broader health care system is cresting.

The big picture: The ad played nationwide — alongside those for automakers, beer and snack foods — and likely cost upward of $8 million, according to TV ad impact measurement company iSpot.

• It featured a group of doctors struggling to complete a passing play, then getting words of encouragement from former New York Giants star Victor Cruz as a narrator intoned, "Not the best football team, but the best health system."
• "This feels like a terrible idea when healthcare providers are constantly telling Congress that their reimbursements are too low," one health tech entrepreneur posted on his LinkedIn page Sunday.

 

[wysdoc]

Meanwhile, at NYU

https://www.axios.com/2025/02/11/hospital-super-bowl-ad-langone-backlash

Partial quote below

Hmm 10 million dollar donation to NYU to support med school tuition
8 million dollars spent on a Super Bowl Ad.
Who’s driving this runaway bus?

 

[Neuronix]

This guy apparently:

Post in: 'Rad Onc Twitter'

Feb 11, 2025

A 4% “profit margin” at the nonprofit

“It is to laugh.” - Bugs Bunny

• TheWallnerus

• 

Credit to @TheWallnerus for pointing this out

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Hmm 10 million dollar donation to NYU to support med school tuition
8 million dollars spent on a Super Bowl Ad.
Who’s driving this runaway bus?

To be fair, it's not the medical school but the hospital system, which probably has its own budget and pool of benefactors...

AAMC posts a fair amount about the economic impact of the academic health systems. We can also lay skeptical eyes on the various academic health systems need to run as businesses while maintaining their community connections as a steward of health.

Economic Impact of AAMC Medical Schools and Teaching Hospitals

The 2022 report presents the economic impact of medical schools and teaching hospitals represented by the AAMC.

www.aamc.org

 

[wysdoc]

To be fair, it's not the medical school but the hospital system, which probably has its own budget and pool of benefactors...

AAMC posts a fair amount about the economic impact of the academic health systems. We can also lay skeptical eyes on the various academic health systems need to run as businesses while maintaining their community connections as a steward of health.

Economic Impact of AAMC Medical Schools and Teaching Hospitals

The 2022 report presents the economic impact of medical schools and teaching hospitals represented by the AAMC.

www.aamc.org

Advertising budget would be more reasonably spent regionally to reach patients likely to use their hospital system

 

[LizzyM]

Advertising budget would be more reasonably spent regionally to reach patients likely to use their hospital system

Unless they want to be a magnet for patients from the entire Eastern Seaboard and beyond. Mayo and Cleveland Clinic already market themselves this way, in markets within 500 miles (or more) of there flagship hospitals.

 

[Fencer]

The story finally came out:
NYU Grossman rescinds program acceptances after losing federal grant - Washington Square News

 

[Neuronix]

My suspicion, reinforced by the article, is that the Dean's office viewed the program as too expensive with uncertain benefits for years. They were looking for an excuse to shrink it or kill it. Not getting the grant renewed likely reflected the ongoing lack of institutional support. The grant loss then gave them an excuse to kill the program, at least temporarily.

The article is a great writeup about academic politics. The financially-motivated portion of the health system (Dean or otherwise) makes some decisions behind closed doors that hurt academics and students, and middle management (i.e. program director) makes neutral statements that don't address the problems in any serious way. I'm not saying that the MSTP program director should resign, but he absolutely could resign. Staying as a scapegoat in an uncomfortable position without public advocacy for their subordinates is part of the academic career calculus.

The culture of retribution is very real within academics. Lack of academic freedom of thought and speech and removal of shared decision making is not something we're preparing our trainees for. I applaud the author of the article for addressing these issues and protecting vulnerable students by not naming them.

 

[tr]

The story finally came out:
NYU Grossman rescinds program acceptances after losing federal grant - Washington Square News

What a shortsighted move. The MSTP matriculants of today are the scientific and medical leaders of tomorrow. Stipends and tuition for 9 students are complete peanuts compared to the cool $8M yearly salary of the hospital CEO. He could have funded the whole cost of the program for those nine out of the spare change in his couch cushions. Now those students will go to other institutions, which will trumpet their own contributions to their scientific achievements and will cite their outcomes on their own T32 renewal applications for decades to come.

 

[StIGMA]

What a shortsighted move. The MSTP matriculants of today are the scientific and medical leaders of tomorrow. Stipends and tuition for 9 students are complete peanuts compared to the cool $8M yearly salary of the hospital CEO. He could have funded the whole cost of the program for those nine out of the spare change in his couch cushions. Now those students will go to other institutions, which will trumpet their own contributions to their scientific achievements and will cite their outcomes on their own T32 renewal applications for decades to come.

Hospital CEO is MD/PhD from Mt Sinai, a successful physician scientist who has advocated for physician scientists. Not sure how involved he was prior to his recent appointment to CEO, but he's been part of other leadership roles at NYU during this whole process.

 

[Maebea]

This is not the first time NYU has lost their MSTP grant: they did so in 2008. Fortunately, that NYU administration backed the program, and the grant was reinstated in 2010. While the grant only funds a portion of the stipends & tuition of about 25% ofstudents (amounting to 10-15% of the total cost of running the program), the NIH imprimatur is important in attracting strong students to the program. My big concern is that a two- or more - year hiatus in admitting students will translate into a seven -or more- year pause in NIH funding. NIH T32 applications require that programs show the most recent 5 years of admissions data. If NYU doesn't admit another cohort of MD-PhD students until 2027, then the earliest they could submit a grant is September 2031, pushing the project start date to 2032 or 2033. Furthermore, the NIH typically starts T32 funding small (2 or 4 slots) and builds it up as programs prove their worth. It would probably take 2 or 3 additional grant submissions for NYU to regain the 25 or so grant slots that it previously held. The question for the NYU administration is whether it is committed enough to the program to fund all costs for the next 7 years, and then to incrementally shift costs to a new MSTP grant over the suceeding 10-15 years. Not all adminstrations see the efficacy of funding MD-PhD training, even if the school has a lot of research funding. We had a dean back in the 1990's that thought that he could replace each MSTP student with 4 MD students doing 1-year Masters research. (Fortunately, we received no funding from him, so we could disregard his opinion.)