Martinsville's Medical School
Mar 22, 2015 10:16:54 GMT -5
Post by Noel T. Boaz on Mar 22, 2015 10:16:54 GMT -5
The biggest "big idea" for Martinsville and Henry County is the new medical school, which will advance all three missions of the Harvest Foundation of the Piedmont - health, education, and community vitality. The College of Henricopolis School of Medicine (CHSM) will become Virginia’s fifth M.D.-granting (“allopathic”) medical school, serving southern Virginia from its home in Martinsville. The mission of CHSM is providing a comprehensive education to medical students in a rigorous and innovative four-year curriculum that emphasizes small-group Inquiry-Based Learning, early clinical exposure to community medicine, and systems-based integrative courses that promote critical thinking and diagnostic acumen. CHSM will seek to produce an even balance of primary care physicians (formerly “general practitioners”) with future specialists and biomedical researchers. By contrast, the four existing M.D. schools in the state produce over 90% specialist doctors who for the most part will work out of large medical centers and will not serve the urgent needs of the region, state, and nation for general rural and small urban healthcare. CHSM is affiliated with the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Integrative Centers for Science and Medicine (ICSM) which undertakes scientific research and delivers healthcare via a direct-primary-care ambulatory clinic, the ICSM Medical Center, located adjacent to Memorial Hospital of Martinsville and Henry County. CHSM leases from ICSM the buildings in which the medical school will be housed. The Shackelford Medical Education at Fayette and North Moss Streets in Martinsville is undergoing reconstruction and will house the first two years of Basic Science classes when the medical school opens in 2016-17. CHSM received Preliminary Certification from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia in 2014 to offer the M.D. degree and is completing its third and final submission to the Liaison Committee for Medical Education for national accreditation on April 15, 2015.
The impact of the medical school on the health and economy of our region will be significant. CHSM, the only M.D. school located in Southside Virginia, will generate 111 new direct jobs by 2017 and serve a core regional population in Southside Virginia of 635,135 citizens. Applying a standard economic multiplier algorithm (“IMPLAN”) a conservative estimate of the medical school’s economic impact is $7,000,000 in 2016, $13,000,000 in 2017 and at least $17,500,000 per year in subsequent years. Maps of poor health indicators, low level of education, and economic distress indicators are consistent in highlighting southern Virginia as the area of greatest significance in the state, where converging socioeconomic forces correspond with poor health. Economic hardship is the single most important factor correlating to increased levels of stress and mental illness, high levels of substance abuse, poor diet, lack of access to medical care, and a high incidence of premature death. A viable medical school for southern Virginia will help reverse these trends and have the doubly beneficial effect of increasing the number of practicing physicians and providing a strong engine for economic growth.
The fundamental importance of an M.D. educational institution to improving the health of the citizenry of southern Virginia has been recognized for years. In 2009 when the Virginia Tobacco Commission approved a $25 million grant to the now-defunct King College medical school in Southwest Virginia, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that “expanding the medical school’s service area to the Southside portion of Virginia, which is also served by the commission, played a key role in the approval process.” That need has gone unmet and health measures have continued to decline. The national County Health Rankings now place Martinsville third from the bottom of 133 ranked localities in Virginia in Health Factors, which measure health behaviors, clinical care, and economic factors, and fourth from the bottom in Health Outcomes, measured by premature death, poor physical health days, poor mental health days, and low birthweights. The localities with worse rankings than Martinsville are also in southern Virginia - Petersburg and Hopewell in Southside and Tazewell County in Southwest. We see the human face of this need every day in the ICSM Medical Center in Martinsville. Statistics bear out the need for more doctors - nationally, regionally, and locally. A report released on March 5, 2015 by the Association of American Medical Colleges entitled “The Complexities of Physician Supply and Demand: Projections from 2013 to 2025” concluded, as have many previous studies, that “demand for physicians continues to grow faster than supply, leading to a projected shortfall between 46,100 and 90,400 physicians by 2025.” These are the national numbers. Here in Southside Virginia we have some 232 primary care physicians for a population of some 635,000, which is significantly below the minimum recommended level of 60-80 primary care physicians per 100,000 population. Southside Virginia was singled out in a 2013 report by the Virginia Department of Health Professions as having “a high proportion of uninsured adults and a low number of physician FTEs [full-time equivalents] per resident,” and the region clearly needs to approximately double the number of its practicing primary doctors. More doctors, particularly primary care physicians, are urgently needed to turn the tide against decades of declining health in our region.
Please add your voice to the discussion. How can we make Martinsville's medical school a reality and make it maximally responsive to the needs to our community? What are possible obstacles and how can we overcome them? Do you have suggestions or questions? Post them here. We can do this.
Noel T. Boaz, Ph.D., M.D., CHSM President, Martinsville
The impact of the medical school on the health and economy of our region will be significant. CHSM, the only M.D. school located in Southside Virginia, will generate 111 new direct jobs by 2017 and serve a core regional population in Southside Virginia of 635,135 citizens. Applying a standard economic multiplier algorithm (“IMPLAN”) a conservative estimate of the medical school’s economic impact is $7,000,000 in 2016, $13,000,000 in 2017 and at least $17,500,000 per year in subsequent years. Maps of poor health indicators, low level of education, and economic distress indicators are consistent in highlighting southern Virginia as the area of greatest significance in the state, where converging socioeconomic forces correspond with poor health. Economic hardship is the single most important factor correlating to increased levels of stress and mental illness, high levels of substance abuse, poor diet, lack of access to medical care, and a high incidence of premature death. A viable medical school for southern Virginia will help reverse these trends and have the doubly beneficial effect of increasing the number of practicing physicians and providing a strong engine for economic growth.
The fundamental importance of an M.D. educational institution to improving the health of the citizenry of southern Virginia has been recognized for years. In 2009 when the Virginia Tobacco Commission approved a $25 million grant to the now-defunct King College medical school in Southwest Virginia, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that “expanding the medical school’s service area to the Southside portion of Virginia, which is also served by the commission, played a key role in the approval process.” That need has gone unmet and health measures have continued to decline. The national County Health Rankings now place Martinsville third from the bottom of 133 ranked localities in Virginia in Health Factors, which measure health behaviors, clinical care, and economic factors, and fourth from the bottom in Health Outcomes, measured by premature death, poor physical health days, poor mental health days, and low birthweights. The localities with worse rankings than Martinsville are also in southern Virginia - Petersburg and Hopewell in Southside and Tazewell County in Southwest. We see the human face of this need every day in the ICSM Medical Center in Martinsville. Statistics bear out the need for more doctors - nationally, regionally, and locally. A report released on March 5, 2015 by the Association of American Medical Colleges entitled “The Complexities of Physician Supply and Demand: Projections from 2013 to 2025” concluded, as have many previous studies, that “demand for physicians continues to grow faster than supply, leading to a projected shortfall between 46,100 and 90,400 physicians by 2025.” These are the national numbers. Here in Southside Virginia we have some 232 primary care physicians for a population of some 635,000, which is significantly below the minimum recommended level of 60-80 primary care physicians per 100,000 population. Southside Virginia was singled out in a 2013 report by the Virginia Department of Health Professions as having “a high proportion of uninsured adults and a low number of physician FTEs [full-time equivalents] per resident,” and the region clearly needs to approximately double the number of its practicing primary doctors. More doctors, particularly primary care physicians, are urgently needed to turn the tide against decades of declining health in our region.
Please add your voice to the discussion. How can we make Martinsville's medical school a reality and make it maximally responsive to the needs to our community? What are possible obstacles and how can we overcome them? Do you have suggestions or questions? Post them here. We can do this.
Noel T. Boaz, Ph.D., M.D., CHSM President, Martinsville
