YSU to evaluate NEOUCOM plan

By Harold Gwin

There are concerns that the number of YSU’s medical slots could be reduced.

YOUNGSTOWN — The president of Youngstown State University said it may be time to take a parochial look at the university’s relationship with the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine.

All of the talk about the medical school across this section of the state for the past year or so has been about collaboration and bringing an additional partner into the NEOUCOM mix that already includes YSU, the University of Akron and Kent State University.

YSU’s Board of Trustees needs to discuss those implications, President David C. Sweet said, noting that changes for NEOUCOM outlined in the new state Capital Budget bill signed by Gov. Ted Strickland will likely take effect around the end of this year.

The bill would direct that Cleveland State University be made part of the BS/MD program that already involves YSU, Kent and Akron.

It also would change the governance of the medical school, taking the three university presidents and members of the three universities’ boards of trustees off the NEOUCOM board, with all new appointments being made by the governor with the advice and consent of the Senate.

That would leave YSU with no direct representation on the board and no guarantee that the university would have any geographic representation either, Sweet said.

YSU needs to stress the importance of NEOUCOM to the Mahoning Valley and the local medical community, he said, suggesting a concerted communication effort to show that relationship to the governor.

The budget bill brings Cleveland State into the BS/MD program, but it says nothing about what that means, Sweet said.

The program has been “a good collaborative effort” that provides YSU, Kent and Akron each with 35 student slots each year.

Participants spend two intensive years at their home university earning a bachelor of science degree and are then guaranteed admission to medical school, enabling them to complete their entire education in six or seven years.

There’s nothing in the bill to indicate how adding CSU to the program will be funded, Sweet said.

He’s worried that those allocations could be reduced with the addition of CSU. The 35 slots aren’t found in any legislation, he said.

Dr. Lois Margaret Nora, NEOUCOM president, has said repeatedly that the medical school would welcome CSU into the BS/MD program, but that the expansion must come with additional funding, preferably from the state, not at the expense of the current program partners.

She pointed out that the changes for NEOUCOM outlined in the budget bill basically fall in line with recommendations made at the end of last year by the Northeast Ohio Universities Collaboration & Innovation Study Commission and were later incorporated in the 10-year strategic plan for higher education developed this spring by Eric D. Fingerhut, Ohio’s chancellor of higher education.

All of NEOUCOM’s partners had a seat at the study commission table and supported the changes. However, the commission also stipulated that adding CSU to the BS/MD program should only be done with an influx of funding to cover the expansion.

A Fingerhut spokesman has said that any addition to the NEOUCOM medical school program would be an expansion of services, not done at the expense of others already in the program.

gwin@vindy.com