Med school grads to get ‘early matches’

Christina Littlefield

Sunday, Feb. 26, 2006 | 8:22 a.m.

Three soon-to-be-graduates from the University of Nevada School of Medicine earned early entrance into prestigious residency programs.

The so-called "early matches" are a bragging point for the Nevada school, which is struggling to get more of its own residency programs off the ground, Vice Dean Jim Lenhart said. The medical school just received the green light from its accrediting agency Monday to start a residency program in emergency medicine at University Medical Center in July.

Most medical school graduates have to wait until "Match Day," March 16, to hear where they'll continue their medical training, Lenhart said. Early matches are usually offered only for the most competitive, specialized programs.

Paul Park, who will be earning a medical degree and a doctorate in May, will head to the Mayo Clinic in Rochcester, Minn., to study neurosurgery in a special seven-year program. Matt Swanic and Dave Freeman will both be studying ophthalmology, Swanic at Tufts University in Boston and Freeman at the University of Colorado in Denver.

"It's always exciting when you get your kids in competitive high profile kinds of programs," Lenhart said.

Nevada does not have residencies in any of those specialties, Lenhart said. Dean John McDonald told state lawmakers at the Governor's Commission on Health Care on Thursday that there is a "stunning gap" between Nevada and medical schools in New Mexico, Arizona and Utah when residencies and fellowships are considered.

McDonald believes the lack of training opportunities compounds Nevada's health care problems because doctors tend to stay where they are trained.

The emergency medicine program will train eight residents a year starting in July, Lenhart said. The three-year program will graduate its first doctors in 2009.

With three full classes, the program will cost about $2 million a year, with about $1.25 million of that covered with federal Medicare money. The rest will be paid for using state and local funding and clinical revenue, Lenhart said.

Medical school officials have only a few weeks to complete their state budget requests for the 2007 legislative session.

Thai lawmakers toured the Community College of Southern Nevada's Cheyenne Campus on Thursday morning as part of a two-week investigative tour of how community colleges operate in the Western United States.

The Thai delegation was exploring the American concept of a two-year community college serving as a bridge to universities, said Rand Key, vice president of planning and development. Community colleges in Thailand are strictly vocational.

Chinese community college officials made a similar visit to CCSN in December. Thursday's visit included about 30 members and staff of a Thailand House of Representatives committee on education, headed by chairman Prakit Poldech, Key said.

Both the Thai and Chinese visitors were especially interested in how CCSN was funded, how it operated and how involved it is in the community, Key said.

The Thai delegates were also "completely mesmerized by our culinary kitchen and gamings labs," Key said.

CCSN is the third largest community college in the country and it has a large coalition of international students with more than 700 enrolled this spring. Two CCSN international students from Thailand, Surasa Theerawechanon and Chuwong Danduwong, helped with the tour.

Jim Rogers, chancellor of the Nevada System of Higher Education, has thrown his support behind the DREAM Act, a Senate bill to help immigrants attain a college education.

Rogers wrote letters in December to the authors of the bill and Nevada's congressional delegation to urge them to support the amendment to the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. The amendment would allow individual states to determine residency for higher education purposes and would give immigrant students who came into the United States as children the right to stay.

The issue came up Tuesday at a luncheon Rogers regularly hosts for several minority leaders. The coalition is working to develop a preferred job description for the next presidents of UNLV and UNR.

Christina Littlefield can be reached at 259-8813 or at clittle@ lasvegassun.com.