Medical School Evolving

UAMS Called Good for Students, Region

Jonathan Unwer counts pills behind the counter at North Hills Fayetteville Collier Drug Store. Unwer is a fourth-year pharmacy student at University of Arkansas for Medical Services in Fayetteville.
Jonathan Unwer counts pills behind the counter at North Hills Fayetteville Collier Drug Store. Unwer is a fourth-year pharmacy student at University of Arkansas for Medical Services in Fayetteville.

— The offerings continue to evolve four years after the first students set foot on the Northwest Arkansas satellite campus of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

“A lot has changed just since we started in 2009,” said Dr. Peter Kohler, vice chancellor for Northwest Arkansas. “Our funding is not what we expected, the needs of the medical field continue to change, and we’re looking at whole new ways to train and educate those going into all aspects of the medical field.”

By The Numbers

UAMS Northwest

The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences-Northwest Arkansas campus opened in 2009 with six medical students. A look at the current and future size of the school:

2012-13 2013-14

Medicine 29 33

Pharmacy 51 60

Nursing 41 45

Health Professions (Radiation Technology)21 25

Totals 142 163

The campus also hopes to begin a program in physical therapy and a residency program for internal medicine in 2014.

Source: Staff Report

Next up: a multidisciplinary clinic serving both public health and teaching needs, a new curriculum in physical therapy and hopefully, a residency program for newly minted doctors.

Andy Roller never expected to sit in the same classroom with students who want to be oncologists or nurse-practitioners. The third-year pharmacy student does just that, though, and when the new Walker Clinic opens in July, he’ll be honing his skills alongside a variety of other medical types. The clinic will be the hands-on lab for a team-based approach to health care. By combining a variety of medical professions in a single clinic, all areas can work as a team to offer quicker diagnosis and better care in a more efficient manner.

“That’s the concept, anyway,” Kohler said. “It’s something we think shows promise, and it will be necessary as the demand for health care continues to rise.”

It’s not the scenario students expected when they first thought of medical careers.

“It’s a new approach even to us, but I think it will pay off in the long run in a lot of ways,” said Caul Corbell, a pharmacy student.

The students spend a majority of their time out of the classroom observing surgeries, working with doctors and in hospitals. Many also switch campuses occasionally, leaving the UAMS complex for the nearby University of Arkansas campus. Undergraduate students in pre-med and nursing programs at the UA, in turn, also take advantage of offerings at UAMS, based on two floors of the former Washington Regional Medical Center. The Walker Clinic will occupy part of that space.

“We built a state-of-the-art simulation lab, and there’s no point in replicating that very expensive piece of equipment just a couple of miles away,” said Tom Smith, dean of the UA’s College of Education and Health Professions. “Every way the two schools can partner gives us that many more options. Doing these types of things independently of each other would be incredibly expensive, and it just makes sense to work together.”

The two schools scrapped an idea to physically move the UA nursing program to the UAMS campus.

Part of the impetus for creating the Northwest Arkansas campus of UAMS was a bottleneck in Little Rock where students saturated the market. Prospective radiologists, internists and anesthesiologists knew demand for their skills was on the rise but struggled to find room in central Arkansas to complete rotations at hospitals and clinics. The Fayetteville campus opened a new pipeline for hands-on training, and the students ease the tide of growing demand in the region, said Dr. Morriss Henry, a Fayetteville ophthalmologist.

“We need all these new folks in every field,” Henry said. “Most doctors find it very rewarding to work with students, and we all realize the need to get more trained people is only going to continue. The baby boomer generation is going to require a huge amount of medical attention, and there are a number of us baby boomers in medical professions who aren’t going to keep practicing forever.”

Baby boomers are one of three main drivers in the next planned field of study for UAMS, Kohler said. A specialty in physical therapy should be approved soon, enabling students in that line to begin next fall.

“There’s an aging population in Northwest Arkansas, and we’re also near the athletic programs at UA that create the types of injuries that require physical therapy,” Kohler said. “Between those two factors and the Veterans Administration hospital and nursing home next door with both older veterans and those returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, there’s both a huge need and a perfect teaching opportunity and training ground.”

Therapy students will join the existing medical, nursing, pharmacy and radiology trainees at the local campus. Students in all fields spend their first two years at the main campus in Little Rock and can choose to transfer to Fayetteville for their last two years of school. About half of those who choose the Fayetteville campus are Northwest Arkansas natives, Kohler said.

Training medical professionals locally is one thing, while keeping them is another, said Carl Collier, an area pharmacist.

“The schooling is good for both the students and for the region,” Collier said. “There’s demand throughout the state and the country, but we’d love to see these students choose a career and a life right here in Northwest Arkansas when they get out of school.”

Retention drives another upcoming addition to the UAMS offerings, Kohler said. Medical students have to complete an internship — known as a “residency” in medical terms — of two to three years after completing medical school. Many doctors eventually settle into careers near where they complete their residencies.

“Everything will have to go perfectly, or we’ll have to push it back another year, but we hope that by July 2014 we’ll be approved to host residencies in internal medicine through our clinic right here on campus,” Kohler said. “That will be a huge step forward and potentially lead to offering other types of residency opportunities in the future.”

Many decisions remain in limbo, however, as the medical community in Northwest Arkansas awaits developments from Little Rock and Washington, D.C. The original financial backing for the Northwest Arkansas campus — money from a statewide tobacco tax — has since been diverted to the state General Fund. The campus depends on the University of Arkansas system for operating money and private donations for capital improvements.

Now, most in the medical field are waiting to see how a proposed expansion of Medicaid affects everything from secured students loans for medical students to the financial viability of clinics and hospitals.

“Everybody’s waiting to see how that shakes out,” Kohler said. “It’s hard to predict too much into the future until we see how that will change the nature of medical dollars. It’s the next big question, for us and for the entire field.”

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