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There's a lot of misinformation about what would happen to the medical school if UAB were to branch off from the system. The UA system would retain the UASOM. However, they would not retain any medicine entities that do not fall under the system umbrella. Kirklin clinic, UAB highlands, and UAB medicine would NOT go to UA. In addition, Children's of AL and the Veteran's Affairs hospital are also independent of UASOM and thus would stay in Birmingham.

Losing the "school of medicine" isn't really that big of a deal. All of the surrounding resources would physically stay in Birmingham. All we'd have to do is charter a "new" UAB school of medicine...and since this is just basically semantics, all that would happen is a name change.

If there were to be a split, and the system kept the medical school, it would be suffocated by the UAB hospital system. This is why the system will NEVER allow UAB to leave. Third and fourth year medical students would only be able to do rotations in "non-UAB" hospitals (currently Children's and the VA) which would suck. They would have to quickly make partnerships with other places like St. Vincent's. And even if they were to do all of those things, they wouldn't be associated with a major research university so they wouldn't attract the same caliber of students as there are now.

In summary, the UA system only owns the UASOM in name. The resources, employees, and buildings associated with the UASOM are in fact UAB employees or entities. If there was separation, UAB would basically just have to change it's name and reapply for certification with the American Medical Association.

This may be a bit of an oversimplification. The physical assets likely belong to the university of Alabama system, and I doubt they will be keen on relinquishing multi million dollar medical machines in the event of a messy divorce. They can't exactly relocate the buildings but they can certainly make things difficult.

I wouldn't worry about that. The system of governance is outdated and hopefully it will be address and we can move forward without the threat of big time boosters from other programs.

(03-23-2015 09:36 PM)KSUBlazer Wrote:  This may be a bit of an oversimplification. The physical assets likely belong to the university of Alabama system, and I doubt they will be keen on relinquishing multi million dollar medical machines in the event of a messy divorce. They can't exactly relocate the buildings but they can certainly make things difficult.

Yes, this explanation is very basic. However, the bottom line is that the threat of "if you separate from us, you'll lose the med school and be reduced to nothing" is complete bull****.

As far as I know, only the medical school belongs to the system. UAB Highlands, Kirklin clinic, and UAB Hospital all firmly belong to UAB.

I don't think we'd have to reapply for certification with the LCME (which accredits allopathic medical schools). It's UAB's medical school, the name is just UASOM because of some influential donors. A name change would likely be pretty straight forward.

It's simply not realistic for the medical school to become an actual entity of the tuscaloosa campus. As you said, all the employees draw UAB paychecks. It's all UAB.

Actually its probably the exact opposite situation than stated hear in. the other medical assets such as Kirkland, Uab highlands and UAB hospital loosely (lots of side deals with docs) belong to the governing board of the UAB health system. The UAB health system is an independent entity - not owned by UAB or UAT. The catch is the governing board over the Health system is appointed half by UABOT and half by the entities from the medical components and with the chairmen(tie-breaker) also appointed by UABOT (which is Currently Watts.) It is unfortunately clear who the eventual owner will be.

The SOM is also a separate entity. The UABOT has allowed/delegated the administrative services such as payroll, pension, etc. to UAB and a contract to pay for these services is negotiated yearly. Some departments such janitorial and research have gone back and forth between the SOM and UAB. The Dean of the SOM reports currently to the UAB president. The UABSOM designation/name was simply an admistrative order by Carol. I have never heard of anything to make it more official than that. I am not sure what would happen if UAB separates from UA system - it is not clear to me what would happen. My best guess is that the UABOT might could simply order the dean of the SOM to report to the chancellors office (as UAB legal and internal audit located in Birmingham currently do) and leave as is or renegotiate the administrative contract.