MEDICAL SCHOOL TO REFOCUS ON RESEARCH,
EDUCATION
December 9, 2005
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| Linda Wilson, chair of the health sciences committee for the Tulane Board of Administrators, talks with an interviewer after the announcement of a wide-ranging renewal plan for the university. |
In a move to respond to a healthcare environment changed by Hurricane Katrina, Tulane University is restructuring both the focus and scope of its medical school. The Tulane Board of Administrators has announced that the Tulane School of Medicine will eliminate 180 faculty positions, downsize its clinical operations and refocus its research areas.
“The fundamental fact is we don’t have as many hospitals and patients in the city of New Orleans,” said Martin D. Payson, who sat on the board’s medical subcommittee. “You have a large medical teaching operation that has to be brought back to the size of the constituency.”
Linda Wilson, chair of the board’s health sciences committee, said that in terms of research, the medical school will emphasize areas of strength: gene therapy, organ transplantation, cancer, infectious disease and cardiovascular diseases. “These are areas that are important to our population and where we are first class,” she said.
Payson and Wilson said that Tulane will recruit volunteer community physicians to supplement full-time clinical work and will reach out to other institutions to form partnerships to aid in developing residency programs and clinical operations. “Tulane is saying that somebody has to make the first move, so we are making it with partnerships to the extent that they are ready to step up to the plate,” said Payson. Wilson added that HCA, Tulane’s partner in Tulane University Hospital and Clinic, was consulted in developing the current plan.
The medical school, which has been functioning at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston since the hurricane, is expected to return to its location in downtown New Orleans for the fall 2006 semester.
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