Posted on: Thursday, June 24, 2004
Medical school passes muster
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By Beverly Creamer
Advertiser Education Writer
The University of Hawai'i's John A. Burns School of Medicine has received full accreditation for the balance of its full eight-year term — through 2008-09 — resolving all questions raised two years ago by an accrediting agency that had threatened probation.
"This full accreditation will allow us to focus on education and research missions, and the development of the bioscience industry in Kaka'ako," said dean Ed Cadman, who has led the turnaround that saw support for the medical school increase by $38 million in the past two years and a dramatic improvement in the number of faculty.
Financing and staffing were two of the key problem areas cited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education in April 2002 when it voted to put the school on probation. The committee, which accredits the nation's 125 medical schools, at that time cited "serious underfunding," the loss of 30 faculty members and a lack of financial support for the medical library.
Seven months later the committee reversed itself after a team from the school presented documentation to show renewed backing for the school — including state support for a new $150 million medical school now nearing completion in Kaka'ako — and significantly better staffing and research money. But it had not yet validated accreditation for its full term.
This latest action removes any remaining stigma and completes a comeback for the medical school, which suffered under a decade of budget cuts in the 1990s and prompted serious concerns from the national accrediting committee as early as 1995. In 1998, an internal university report even recommended that the medical school should either become self-sufficient or be eliminated.
'Stamp of approval'
A fully accredited medical school assures that Hawai'i will continue to train its own doctors, keep practicing physicians up to date on the latest techniques and provide residents the best medical care possible.
"It's wonderful news," said fourth-year medical student Brandon Itagaki, 28. "Even though we were receiving excellent teaching, it was a little cloud over your shoulder. Now we can stop worrying about what's going to happen. We knew the school was correcting all the things seen as a problem."
"It's a stamp of approval," said vice dean Sam Shomaker, who led the appeal to the accrediting committee during the past two years. "This is a testament to the faculty's commitment and dedication to the vision the dean has established," Shomaker said. "It's a national validation of the work they're doing."
The good news was also welcome in a difficult second week for the university's acting president, David McClain, who commended Cadman and his faculty "for resolving the issues" and said the school was now on track to be the core of a new bioscience industry for the state.
Old problems fixed
Under Cadman's tenure, the school has seen dramatic growth in federal research grants and contracts — from $19 million in 1999 to $40 million this year. The school's total budget went from $54 million in 1999 to almost $99 million this year.
The number of full-time faculty has increased by 57 since 2001, making the total 225 this year, with the number of part-time faculty increasing by 63, for a total of 233.
"We had suffered a fairly substantial attrition in faculty, but that's been radically turned around," said Shomaker. "They told us they felt we had adequate numbers of faculty in all the disciplines medical schools were required to have. They also had no issues with our financial situation. Our financial people have done a tremendous job in addressing those issues."
Shomaker said that the state and university's commitment to a new medical school was "certainly" part of the change, although "that represents the future and they really had to look at our existing situation and judge that. They still had to look at faculty, budget and curriculum."
Curriculum change
The school has also made a curriculum change to augment training in the basics.
"Our curriculum is case-oriented," explained Shomaker. "In small group settings, the students have actual patient cases that are used as a vehicle for learning. The LCME at one point was somewhat critical of the fact students weren't getting enough organized exposure to basic science, so we reorganized the curriculum to provide that type of experience for students and implemented that in the fall. So far it's proving effective. Students are commenting they think it's an improvement over what we had."
Fourth-year medical student Taryne Imai, 26, said that while she missed those changes in the way basic sciences were taught, she has heard other students praise them.
"I think that was a good thing," Imai said. "It organized the lectures a little better so students had more fundamental basic science knowledge in a lecture-based format. From my situation, we didn't have any exams on that, and I wish we did. It would have forced us to study basic science a little more. But we still retained our problem-based learning, which we're very proud of."
Since the school's first class graduated in 1975, the medical school has graduated 1,749 physicians, said Cadman, including 178 of Native Hawaiian ancestry. By some estimates, half the physicians practicing in Hawai'i are graduates of the medical school or its residency programs.
Reach Beverly Creamer at bcreamer@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8013.
