http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/Detail.p...S&ID=65867
Updated November 20, 2008 09:53:57 PM
King College details plans for med school
By Rick Wagner
NET News Service
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BRISTOL — King College plans to open a medical school somewhere near hospitals in Bristol or Kingsport by 2012, college President Greg Jordan announced Thursday.
“It has been a process that’s been under way quietly for two years,” Jordan said of a feasibility study by the Pittsburgh-based Tripp Umbach consulting firm.
Jordan’s remarks came after a morning news conference at the Presbyterian-affiliated liberal arts college. He cited the need to help avert an impending physician shortage, particularly specialists, and data from consultant Paul Umbach on the need for more physicians in the five-state area within 150 miles of Bristol.
Jordan also touted the economic benefit of the allopathic school on the region, including a payroll of 400 employees. The projected initial impact the first year of operation is $62 million, eventually growing to $325 million and topping $500 million if a medical corridor develops. Jordan said the school has input and support from the area’s two dominant hospital systems, Sullivan County-based Wellmont Health System and Johnson City-based Mountain States Health Alliance, and Holston Medical Group.
“This makes sense in every way,” Jordan said.
Jordan said the timeline for the school is for planning to get under way in the spring of 2009, followed by development of the curriculum, appointment of a dean, hiring of faculty and development of the medical campus, following by the first class starting studies in 2012.
He said the King College medical school would work with existing medical schools, including the four-year allopathic one at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City and the four-year osteopathic medical school at Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate.
“In our very region, there will be a shortage of 6,500 physicians (in five to eight years),” Jordan said.
Of those, he said 4,800 would be vacant positions for specialists.
“What will we do when we cannot access a cardiologist?” Jordan asked.
He said the problem is because of more demand from an aging population and aging doctors who are retiring.
Unlike the heated political battle waged in the early 1970s to get federal approval for the medical school at ETSU, Jordan said the shortage of physicians and data on underserved medical areas in the region should make federal approval not nearly as contentious.
Among federally designated underserved areas — based on too few primary care providers, high infant mortality, high poverty and/or high elderly populations — are Carter, Greene, Hancock, Hawkins, Johnson and Unicoi counties in Tennessee, along with Buchanan, Dickenson, Lee, Russell, Scott, Smyth, Tazewell, Washington and Wise counties and the city of Bristol in Virginia. They are among 38 localities in the 150-mile radius.
Sullivan County didn’t make the list, but other counties in North Carolina, Kentucky and West Virginia did.
Bristol Motor Speedway General Manager Jeff Byrd, chairman of the King College board of trustees, said the Bristol and Kingsport areas were under consideration for the main campus, while Umbach and Jordan said Tennessee and Virginia locations would be considered.
Umbach, who has helped launch five medical schools, said the basic sciences campus mostly for first- and second-year students could be separate from the clinical campus for third- and fourth-year students.
The Association of American Medical Colleges and Council on Graduate Medical Education are calling for more medical school graduates to meet a projected shortfall of 85,000 to 200,000 physicians in five to eight years. The AAMC has called for a 30 percent increase (4,946) in medical school students by 2015, while COGME has called for 3,000 new medical graduates by 2015.
Dr. Jerry Miller, founder of Kingsport-based Holston Medical Group, said HMG is 32 physicians short now.
The practice in Northeast Tennessee and Southwest Virginia has 158 doctors and 245,000 active patients, with almost 50,000 seeing a doctor each month. It also picks up 1,500 new patients a month.
“I am growing a new family practice every three months,” Miller said.
He said 80 percent of his new physicians are foreign medical students who are excellent doctors.
“But it’s difficult to introduce them to Duffield, Va.,” he said.