Already enjoying one of the highest concentrations of doctors in the country, Connecticut could get an added pipeline via Quinnipiac University, which announced plans to open a medical school in North Haven.
Quinnipiac hopes to matriculate its first medical students in either 2013 or 2014.
While Connecticut trails only Massachusetts, Maryland and New York for physicians on a per-capita basis, the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC) ranks the state lower for its percentage of primary care physicians, with Connecticut ninth nationally by that measure and behind every Northeast state except New Jersey.
Connecticut is middle of the pack nationally with regard to the number of medical students as a percentage of the population, with Vermont tops in the nation and New York and Massachusetts seventh and eighth. And with only a slight increase in medical students between 2007 and 2008, the most recent year studied, Connecticut was near the bottom of the barrel on that front; as it was for state residents matriculating to schools in their home state.
Quinnipiac plans to make primary care the focus of its medical school, along with health issues in developing countries ”“ which bears a tinge of irony in that AAMC says Connecticut itself is among the states that are most reliant on doctors trained overseas.
The Quinnipiac board of trustees gave its approval following a year of internal studies and a six-month feasibility study by outside consultants. The study concluded that a medical school is compatible with the university”™s mission, and that Quinnipiac has both the financial and physical resources necessary to open one.
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“Two major challenges that must be successfully met are securing a major hospital (or) health system clinical partner, and meeting the very high and demanding accreditation standards,” said John Lahey, president of the university. “Quinnipiac will turn its immediate attention to these two requirements and goals.”
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The Hamden school did not immediately specify how much it would cost to open a medical school; Quinnipiac had a $223 million endowment as of 2007, the year it purchased its North Haven satellite campus from Wellpoint Inc., the parent company of Anthem Blue Cross & Blue Shield.
Last fall, Quinnipiac established its school of health sciences in North Haven that trains students for careers in nursing, imaging, and occupational therapy among other programs. In time, it plans to have most graduate programs at the campus as well as infrastructure for its online programs.
“A medical school is the next logical extension for Quinnipiac since we now prepare so many other essential members of the health care team,” said Edward O”™Connor, dean of the Quinnipiac School of Health Sciences, in a prepared statement. “It only makes sense that we extend our health professions programs to include training physicians, particularly in this time of critical health care reform.”
Quinnipiac said it would open discussions with the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), the accrediting body for U.S. medical schools hospitals and health systems that is a joint venture between AAMC and the American Medical Association. LCME”™s accreditation members include Dr. Bruce Koeppen, dean of academic affairs and education at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine in Farmington.
The university also plans to reach out to hospitals and health systems themselves, with an eye on establishing one or more formal affiliations.
If successful, Quinnipiac would be one of just 90 universities nationally with both a law school and medical school, including the University of Connecticut and Yale University.
Quinnipiac also has programs in business, communications, education, arts and sciences. The school has 5,700 undergraduate students and 2,000 graduate students.
