Revised plan for ASU medical school gains approval
By Roy Ockert Jr.
April 28, 2015
Advocates of an Arkansas State University initiative to establish an osteopathic medical school on its Jonesboro campus have been saying for months, both publicly and privately, that the effort is on schedule.
They maintained their confidence even after the national Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation last September rejected the New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine’s first application to open a second site at ASU.
Barbara Ross-Lee, a vice president at the New York college and future dean of the Jonesboro school, told an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reporter shortly afterward that it is not uncommon for a school to be denied accreditation initially. Having previously served as chairman of the American Osteopathic Association’s accrediting committee, she understood the process well.
So it was no surprise when on April 18 the accrediting commission approved the ASU location. NYIT-COM@ASU — if that’s the acronym to be used — is a reality.
In an ASU news release NYIT President Dr. Edward Guiliano said that attention can now be turned to hiring and developing faculty and staff in Jonesboro, with an opening targeted for August 2016. Ross-Lee, who has served as a medical school dean twice previously, will relocate to Jonesboro to lead the launch effort.
“It is an extraordinary win-win-win situation,” Guiliano said, “for the residents of the region who will enjoy improved health services as well as business development, for the state of Arkansas, and for the two universities.”
The release said that Arkansas has a vital need for more physicians, especially primary care physicians, in all state regions. National studies rank Arkansas 49th out of 50 states in its population’s health status and 48th in the percentage of active physicians per 100,000 people.
The ASU school would initially enroll 115 freshmen annually.
Arkansas currently has only one medical school in Arkansas — the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences at Little Rock. ASU officials said previously that the United States presently has 29 certified osteopathic medical colleges at 37 locations, but the nearest to Jonesboro are at Kansas City, Tulsa and Hattiesburg, Miss.
However, the Fort Smith Regional Healthcare Foundation is working on a plan to open an osteopathic medical school there, to serve about 150 freshmen annually, and some friction between the sponsoring organizations and the Arkansas Osteopathic Medical Association has resulted.
In December the AOMA sent a message to its members, saying that NYIT did not “exercise its right to request a reconsideration” of the September denial, thus implying that the ASU proposal was back to square one. But Jeff Hankins, ASU vice president for strategic communications and economic development, said then that the announcement was misleading and that the association had made no effort to contact ASU or NYIT.
NYIT officials chose to submit a new and improved application, rather than to appeal the one that had been denied, Hankins explained.
Several other sharp exchanges followed, including an assertion by Hankins that members of the Arkansas association had testified before the accrediting committee against the ASU plan in September. He also accused them of making “grossly untrue statements,” according to press reports.
“The AOMA executive director is from Fort Smith,” Hankins said. “His father practiced in Fort Smith, and they are both a part of a small, select community that supports the Fort Smith school and opposes Jonesboro. I think they have a clear bias in this situation.”
Whether that’s true or not, ASU officials are rightfully jubilant that their plans can go forward. They believe their partnership with the NYIT college gives them the expertise to get the school up and running on schedule.
NYIT will be fully responsible for operating the school, which would, according to a feasibility study, generate for Northeast Arkansas during its 2-year startup period approximately $70 million in economic activity, provide more than 300 new jobs and add $2 million more in taxes.
The school will be housed, along with other ASU health-related programs, in ASU’s historic Wilson Hall, which the university is renovating at a cost of about $4 million.
The Arkansas Higher Education Coordinating Board last summer approved the medical school plans for ASU. At that time ASU officials estimated that NYIT would invest about $6 million for startup operating funds and faculty over the first three years.
Previous reports had indicated that tuition for osteopathic school students would be about $50,000 per year. While that’s quite high compared to UAMS, A-State officials point out that only about 200 students annually can enroll at the only in-state school and that hundreds of others must go out of state.
Meanwhile, the effort at Fort Smith proceeds, and its opening has been moved up to August 2016. A ground-breaking ceremony was held in March for a 102,000-square-foot building to house what will be called the Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine. Its annual tuition will total about $43,000, officials said. The building will cost some $32 million, and the foundation has agreed to spend $58 million on the project.
Leaders of both initiatives are also diligently searching for clinics and hospitals that can host students for their residencies, critical to their training process. That may be the biggest challenge for both schools.
Roy Ockert is editor emeritus of The Jonesboro Sun. He may be reached by e-mail at royo@suddenlink.net.