Regents weigh different visions of medical center

Friday, Sept. 23, 2005 | 10:09 a.m.

With various proposals for establishing an academic medical center in Las Vegas being floated by them, university regents need lessons in navigating the "alphabet soup," the dean of the state's medical school said.

All of the plans being circulated -- be it from the University of Pittsburgh, promoted by Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman for the city's 61 acres near downtown, or plans offered by the Clark County Medical Society or the Nevada Hospital Association -- have focused on different visions for the medical center.

John McDonald, dean of the University of Nevada School of Medicine, attempted to "clarify the alphabet soup" for the regents on Thursday exactly what the school means when it discusses building an academic medical center and exactly what that endeavor will involve. In the Nevada System of Higher Education's vision, an academic medical center brings medical education, research and clinical activities together in one physical location, McDonald said.

He said it would unite the health science programs currently offered under the auspices of the UNR-run medical school with the other health sciences offered by both UNR and UNLV together with a hospital.

Ideally, the affiliated hospital would be a nonprofit organization that would work interdependently with the school of medicine on daily operations and the development of programs, McDonald said. Medical school faculty would be integrated into the leadership of the hospital, which would have an absolute commitment to the highest quality education, patient care and research.

The medical school's affiliation with the hospital would also provide resources -- financial and otherwise --- to continually improve the university's faculty, patient care and research endeavors, McDonald said.

"We have pieces of this now, but we don't have the whole package," McDonald said.

The school's partnership with University Medical Center in Las Vegas comes the closest, but medical school faculty members are still not integrated into the leadership, the dean said.

At most of its affiliate hospitals, medical school faculty are "reduced to laborers," McDonald said. Part of that is the medical school's fault because they don't have the faculty or the resources to meet the hospital's needs.

But a true partnership needs to allow the medical school to come to the hospital and the hospital to come to the medical school when ever either has a program need, McDonald said.

In an effort Rogers viewed as protecting their own territory from seeing the University of Pittsburgh come in, the Nevada Hospital Association recently offered to increase its funding of residency programs by about $20 million a year. The contribution will go a long way to improving and expanding the medical school, Rogers and McDonald said, which is the first step to developing a full academic medical center.

The medical society similarly approved its own recommendations this week for how the state should build an academic medical center. President Ron Kline said the society does not want University Pittsburgh to come in because it would rather see Nevada develop its own medical care.

It's not about protecting the pocketbooks for the doctors, Kline told the regents, it's about pride.

Both Rogers and McDonald said they are continually in talks to see how a center might be developed, and without formally voting, regents gave Rogers that continued authority.

But Regent Dorothy Gallagher of Elko warned Rogers and McDonald that they needed to get a cohesive proposal in place soon because she's sick of fielding calls from confused community members.

"We need to get something positive out there because pretty soon people are going to think we need to dedicate this medical school to psychiatry," Gallagher said.