SOM gains high marks for social contribution

August 4th, 2010 by Ryan Windeyer |

Woodward

A study of the nation’s medical schools shows the University of Mississippi Medical Center’s efforts to train physicians for Mississippi’s rural communities and underserved populations are working.

When scored for performance in three categories considered fundamental to a medical school’s societal role, the School of Medicine placed 13th of 141 in the nation.

The study, published in the June 15 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine, analyzed 141 schools for performance in three areas of what the authors identified as social mission: percentage of graduates in primary care, percentage practicing in federally identified “Health Professional Shortage Areas” and percentage of underrepresented minority graduates.

To compile the study, authors analyzed data of medical school graduates between 1999 and 2001.

“It is the mission of the School of Medicine to admit and train students from Mississippi who will eventually take care of patients in Mississippi,” said Dr. LouAnn Woodward, vice dean of the school and UMMC assistant vice chancellor for health affairs. “We’ve been working hard for years to do that and this study’s results reflect that effort.”

The authors made the point they knew the nation’s three historically black institutions with medical colleges – Morehouse College, Meharry Medical College and Howard University – would score higher than other schools. And they did so significantly, placing first through third, with scores for the combined three social-mission areas of 13.98, 12.92 and 10.66, respectively.

Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine placed fourth with a score of 5.34. The Mississippi school scored a combined 2.86, with its strongest area being placement of graduates in health-professional shortage areas. Vanderbilt University finished last, scoring -3.95.

Woodward credits a School of Medicine philosophy that students from rural communities are the people most likely to return and practice in a rural setting as physicians.

“We know in both an anecdotal sense and from hard numbers that Mississippi needs more primary-care physicians and health-care professionals of all kinds. Considering the state’s largely rural population and that it often ranks last nationally in health factors such as obesity, heart disease, diabetes and stroke, it is our mission and our duty to educate physicians to meet those needs,” she said.

Nationally, medical schools struggle to achieve diversity in their enrollments. While the term diversity often implies only race and ethnicity, medical school administrators think of other dimensions, such as geography, personal experiences and attributes, educational background, gender and socioeconomic status.

“As a diverse people, Mississippians will be served best by a diverse physician workforce,” Woodward said.

Efforts to recruit a diverse student body begin long before the application process. Pipeline programs run by the Division of Multicultural Affairs bring Mississippi schoolchildren to the Medical Center as early as sixth grade for extracurricular enrichment and introduction to health careers. Numerous programs expose high school students and undergraduates to medical and research careers and provide test preparation for various entrance exams.

The School of Medicine’s admissions committee aggressively recruits top undergraduates and keeps strong relationships with Mississippi’s colleges and universities. UMMC offers multiple full and partial-tuition scholarships, some for students underrepresented in medicine, some that encourage rural practice.

The Mississippi Rural Physicians Scholarship Program offers $30,000 scholarships to students who commit to practice primary care in a rural area. In the last 10 years about 28 percent of the school’s entering students came from rural counties. The school also offers two diversity-related scholarship programs, one from the Robert M. Hearin Foundation, the other funded by the Barksdale Foundation.

The medical school curriculum provides a number of opportunities for exposure to and emphasis of primary care. Preceptor programs in the Departments of Medicine and Family Medicine provide increased awareness of the need for their future services in the state’s rural and underserved areas.

Lastly, the School of Medicine is expanding. By growing entering-class sizes, the school can graduate more physicians and better serve the state’s dire medical needs. The school enrolled 110 first-year students in 2008, 120 in 2009 and 135 in 2010.

“We are increasing class sizes as rapidly as funding and accreditation bodies will allow,” Woodward said. “As we grow, we are very careful to ensure that we provide a quality program. In fact, in the last few years, while the number of students has grown, the performance of our students on national examinations has also improved.

“Our senior students exceeded the national mean year after year on a major, national standardized exam which serves as one of our key benchmarks.”

The School of Medicine is committed to continuing the efforts to recruit and retain its best students in Mississippi, she said.

“With continued focus on the need for more quality health-care providers, more physicians in rural Mississippi, more primary care providers, and the recruitment of a truly diverse student body, UMMC continues to move in the right direction to improve the health and lives of Mississippians,” she said.

The social mission study is available at http://www.annals.org/content/152/12/804.full.

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