Is the UT System Preparing for a New Medical School?
Lawmakers and local leaders are hopeful a plan unanimously adopted at Thursday's University of Texas System Board of Regents meeting means they could finally get what they've long been waiting for: a new medical school.
One of the elements of the plan outlined by Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa is to "advance medical education and research in Austin." Even before Thursday's meeting ended, state Sen. Kirk Watson issued a press release reading between the lines, calling for the creation of a flagship health science center and medical school in Austin. "Within the next 30 days, I plan to offer ...
Comments (4)
Erika Jonietz via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Meanwhile, the state has cut funding for medical internship and residency programs... so I suppose we're going to export all the new docs to other states?
Jorge Haynes
Kudos to Chancellor Cigarroa for taking this bold step of suggesting a UT Medical school where the population is growing fastest. If Texas is going to meet the demand for physicians we have to give South Texas the ability to grow their own. A medical school is a most important step in meeting the needs of this rapidly growing part of the state.
Healthy Texan
The only way we are going to close that shortfall in primary care is to utilize nurse practitioners to the full extent of their education and training. Of course physicians oppose this move because they worry about their bottom line. They claim nurse practitioners need supervision but when they are only required to be onsite at the clinic 1 out of every 10 days and to do a retrospective review of a random 10% of charts how much supervision is actually occurring? The docs need to do the right thing.
Dan Gattis
"It’s time for Austin to come together and act, creating a flagship initiative that can fortify our future and lead the world in the fields of medical education, healthcare and bioscience." Just FYI, it's already being done between Georgetown and Round Rock with the Texas A&M Medical School campus, Texas State Nursing School campus, and ACC's new campus offering Allied Health Programs. Not to mention, 3 new hospitals (Seton, Scott & White & St. Davids) within a few miles of each of the campuses where the students from all the programs can do rounds and gain experience along side of top notch doctors. Everyone working together to improve health care and access to health care in all of Central Texas. This environment has already attracted numerous bio-science companies to the area and was the genesis of the creation of the Texas Life Sciences Collaboration Center in Georgetown. The difference between Austin and Williamson County is that Austin talks and Williamson County gets it done.