Leaders of Touro College in Manhattan and the New York Medical College in Valhalla said their new institutional affiliation will create a new, more collaborative model for health care in training students in medicine and allied health professions.
At ceremonies in New York City and Westchester, the schools recently announced the completion of a $60-million deal that transferred ownership of the private, 151-year-old medical college in Valhalla from the Archdiocese of New York to Touro, the nation”™s largest nonprofit university system under Jewish auspices.
As part of the deal negotiated in 2009, the Roman Catholic archdiocese, the Valhalla institution”™s sponsor since 1978, will reinvest $29 million of the purchase cost in the medical school, said Dr. Alan Kadish, Touro president and CEO.
With the transfer, Kadish became president of the approximately 1,500-student New York Medical College. Dr. Karl P. Adler will remain as the medical school”™s CEO. Adler previously served as both president and CEO. The college”™s newly seated 15-member board of trustees includes four holdovers from the previous board under Roman Catholic sponsorship.
Kadish said a Touro planning committee is studying whether to expand or relocate some of the 41-year-old institution”™s programs for allied health care professionals on the Valhalla campus. The committee also is considering building a nursing school in Valhalla, for which New York Medical College already is licensed. The nursing school could supply a growing demand for nurse practitioners amid a continued shortage of primary-care physicians, said Kadish.
Touro currently operates a small nursing school in Brooklyn among the 32 locations in the U.S. and abroad where the Jewish university enrolls a total of about 19,000 students.
“By bringing these two organizations together,” said Adler, “it”™s going to offer us opportunities to teach our new physicians and other health professionals how to work in teams.” That team approach is the future of health care delivery, he said.
“I think we”™re going to be one of the leaders in that because we have those capabilities built into this relationship,” Adler said.
Adler said training health professionals and doctors now requires a well-rounded education in areas including law, sociology, business and economics. “Touro has schools in all those disciplines,” he said, and they will be more of a focus in the education of doctors and other health professionals.
“In terms of creating a new model for health care,” said Kadish, “the combination of M.D.s and allied health professionals on the Valhalla campus will create a new paradigm for health care.” The new affiliation also will yield collaborative research between professionals in medicine, economics, biology, law and psychology, he said.
Dr. Mark Hasten, Touro board chairman, speaking at a ceremony in Manhattan”™s Bryant Park ”“ named after a founder of New York Medical College, poet and newspaperman William Cullen Bryant ”“ called the completed acquisition “the culmination of a long-held dream” of Touro”™s founding president, Dr. Bernard Lander. Lander died last year as the Westchester deal stalled and was extended while Touro officials awaited approval from the U.S. Department of Education to offer federal financial aid to medical students in Valhalla.
Lander, said Hasten, “set the foundation, vision and philosophy upon which this affiliation agreement rests. His quest to add an outstanding medical research institution to the Touro family began with Touro”™s very inception and was unrelenting.”
