Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine.... Do You Know the Facts?

[Mtn. States Resident]

From the Idaho Statesman .......this editorial might make what is confusing easier to understand.

We need more residencies in Idaho! !!


Idaho med school a good idea in need of work and transparency | Idaho Statesman

MSR

[Mtn. States Resident]

If you read nothing else, please read these two articles.

The last one addresses how similar this move is to what Otter did with the Internet for school districts and more. BTW, that editorial omitted there are 8 contracted seats with the University of Utah School of Medicine for a total of 48/year.

This article, well just read it. It's worth your time to understand to understand what a doctor in rural Idaho.

Idaho medical college won



MSR

[BannockCounty]

YIKES - I see a train wreck looming: Match Week" (culminating in "Match Day") for medical residencies nationwide was a little over a week ago. (Put the hashtag #Match2016 or #SOAP2016 in twitter to get a feel for it). It may not be official, but I've seen it thrown out that the HIGHEST number of American traditional allopathic medical school graduates EVER went through the heartbreak of not being matched and not finding a place in the scramble for leftover spots this March. Something like 6% of med school graduates nationwide have to tread water for a year and try again next year for a residency. Their obligation to pay their med school loans kicks in whether they have a residency or not and many have to wait tables and fight off bankruptcy until they can try for a residency again the next year (with no guarantees). We need a LOT more residencies nationwide (let alone in Idaho) to accommodate the ever-increasing number of med school grads nationwide (osteopathic AND allopathic). Until we have enough residencies available for the graduates coming out of existing med schools, I would think a new med school in Idaho would be a train wreck and a potential scandal (if its graduates emerge with $200-300K in loans with very little hope of completing their training and working in their field I can't imagine Idahoans are going to be too pleased with the for-profit entity that led them down that risky path).

[Mtn. States Resident]

Originally Posted by BannockCounty

YIKES - I see a train wreck looming: Match Week" (culminating in "Match Day") for medical residencies nationwide was a little over a week ago. (Put the hashtag #Match2016 or #SOAP2016 in twitter to get a feel for it). It may not be official, but I've seen it thrown out that the HIGHEST number of American traditional allopathic medical school graduates EVER went through the heartbreak of not being matched and not finding a place in the scramble for leftover spots this March. Something like 6% of med school graduates nationwide have to tread water for a year and try again next year for a residency. Their obligation to pay their med school loans kicks in whether they have a residency or not and many have to wait tables and fight off bankruptcy until they can try for a residency again the next year (with no guarantees). We need a LOT more residencies nationwide (let alone in Idaho) to accommodate the ever-increasing number of med school grads nationwide (osteopathic AND allopathic). Until we have enough residencies available for the graduates coming out of existing med schools, I would think a new med school in Idaho would be a train wreck and a potential scandal (if its graduates emerge with $200-300K in loans with very little hope of completing their training and working in their field I can't imagine Idahoans are going to be too pleased with the for-profit entity that led them down that risky path).

You are so right, Bannock County. Well over 1,000 four year educated medical students couldn't get a U.S. residency the last 3-4 years. I read the average debt was $250,000 for those graduates who couldn't get accepted to a residency. Who will pay those debts?

The way to get more doctors in Idaho is more residencies here.

A few useful links. Some will get to match with Soap, but that probably isn't even 200 students, leaving 1,000/year who didn't match in the U.S.

For Med Students Who Didn't Match, It's a SOAP Opera | Medpage Today

The Scurlock Scene: The Match, The SOAP, & the reality of being an IMG


What Happens When You Don't Match?

I'd rather see Idaho use the tax incentive money and get 2-3 more Internal Medicine Residencies, a General Surgery and an Emergency Medicine Residency opened not this school.

MSR

[Mtn. States Resident]

Well hot damn! I've just seen that Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center will be starting a Primary Care Residency perhaps as early as Summer 2017 or 2018. This is big news given how long ISU Family Medicine Residency actively blocked any residency in Idaho Falls (source... personal correspondence). Nothing says this residency will be connected with ISU. Mtn. Star, the Regional Brand for the UT, ID, and AL HCA hospitals has established residency programs independently. This may somehow be connected with the St. Mark's program.

Or, EIRMC, which serves as a teaching facility for fellows from the D.O. School in Yakima, WA, plus preceptor ships for most M.D. or D.O. School in the nation, may be a Residency site for that D.O. school, or the University of Washington or the University of Utah.

Heaven forbid someone in Idaho "gets it enough" to get new residency programs started and full prior to the Osteopathic Medical School of Idaho being built. We can hope. If so I'd expect some new residency programs being announced for Boise soon.

I'm impressed the program will start with seven spots. That is seven residents per level. My hope is it will be Internal Medicine, as that what Idaho is lacking so much now. But even if it's another Family Medicine program, this is fabulous news for the uninsured and under insured in Eastern Idaho.

I'll end this positively by saying I hope the venture capitalists building the Meridian D.O. school are pushing the agenda now for new residencies in Idaho. After all, at least 50% of residents practice where they train or close by. And that how more doctors practice in Idaho, not by where they attend school; instead where they complete their residency.

MSR

[Merrily Gather]

Thanks for keeping us updated.

[Mtn. States Resident]

Originally Posted by Merry Lee Gather

Thanks for keeping us updated.

You are welcome. I didn't know if anyone was really following the proposed, expensive train wreck this school will be at this time or not. Here is some updated information for everyone consider as ultimately Your Tax Dollars will be used to pay The Burrell Group the interest and principle for this school.

1. The Idaho Falls Residency program will be another Family Practice program. It appears accreditation will come directly from the U. of Washington much like the Kootenai Program in Couer d'Alene. It will have seven residentss/year and this residency has zero to do with the Burrell-financed D.O. school.

2. Venture Capitalists invest in projects to make money, not for Humanitarian efforts. As I wrote much earlier here, this school was planned for MT until the MT Medical Association heard about it and along with the U. of Washington WWAMI'S staff got actively involved stopping it. So the Burrell Venture Group switched to Idaho with the deal done in 20 days. The Idaho Osteopathic Association was told about it days before the announcement, but not the Idaho Medical Association.

3. At their summer meeting the Idaho Medical Association (IMA) had three proposals of how come this school would be not in Idaho's best interests currently. The final one had something like 18 reasons of how come this school was NOT the way to go for Idaho currently. The #1 reason was too many M.D. and D.O. grads currently can't get placements in residencies. Also, #2 not enough training facilities for 150/students/class each year. The D.O. school would directly compete with all the spots where PAS and NPS currently do their clinical work. The Idaho State University PA program has now expanded to three locations.

The IMA very much opposes the school as proposed. They are not happy that they weren't even consulted. The IMA is 5-8X larger than the Idaho Osteopathic Medical Association and includes both M.D.s and D.O.s. It was absolutely a major error to not ask IMA how to get more doctors to practice in Idaho! Burrell wouldn't have been able to talk Gov. Otter and ISU's President to sign on for this school had IMA and others been consulted. If it's a great idea in 20 days won't it be a great idea in two months or more?

4. Burrell has secured more hospitals and physician's offices in WY, MT, SD and ND to do basic training for clerkships during the school. How does placement in five states create an Idaho D.O. school? If the other four states wanted to pay X dollars annually to secure spots for their students, then this could be a different discussion. The other four states could also help pay the money back to the Burrell Group. To date, I'm not aware of any of those states signing on for the debt. Both ND and SD have medical schools. It would seem like expansion of existing facilities would be cheaper.

5. The Burrell Ventures Group built a D.O. school in their home state of New Mexico. Looking at this in detail, routine and required clerkship and other are being met by having students do a part of their work in Mexico!! I don't know that the NM school can even call itself an "Accrediated" U.S. Osteopathic program.

6. Idaho already has 50 contract seats yearly with the U. of Washington and the U. of Utah Medical Schools. Plus all the students who attend private universities in the Midwest and East Coast. I'm not proposing 50/year is enough. But it use to be any student who utilized the WWAMI program and WICHE for Utah, had to practice in Idaho for three years after finishing training or pay the state back the hundreds of thousands of dollars they saved in tuition. Most opted to return to Idaho. What happened to this rule so the students, who owed the Tax payers of Idaho nothing for their hundreds of thousands of $ the Tax payers funded for their medical education? How come no one is even pursuing this question?

7. While I don't doubt Idaho will have an M.D. or D.O. school, it simply isn't the time currently without more residencies in Idaho. It's not like states surrounding Idaho have remained stagnant. In the last ~ ten years NV has added a D.O. school, AZ has added a D.O. school, OR has added a D.O. school and WA has added a D.O. school, is adding UW Medical School at Gonzaga and Washington State University is accepting applications for their first year Medical School Class to start in the fall of 2017. That is six more schools surrounding Idaho. How come Idaho doesn't contract 25 more seats with those schools and require the students to practice in Idaho for 3-4 years upon completion?

Why do the Tax Payers want this added debt from Burrell when the at least 2/3 of the grads will obtain residency training in other states, if they can get a Residency?

8. Idaho could work with U. of Washington, U. of Utah or the other D.O. schools or Washington State University's new Medical School to get other residencies in Idaho. U of Washington is a logical choice as they have expanded the Family Medicine Residency program in Idaho and expanded it perhaps six fold. UW also started the Boise Psychiatric Program and the Internal Medicine program. Not all years of either the Psychiatry or the Internal Medicine Residency are done in Boise. I think it's time for change.

Cities or Metros smaller than Boise have Internal Medicine, Psychiatry, Pediatrics, OB/GYN and General Surgery programs in their cities. If UW isn't willing to do this, why not work with the University of Utah or one of the new schools to get these residencies up and running in Idaho? Yes, for most of those residencies the resident would need to completr blocks of specialized care in bigger cities to hsve met U. S. standards for residencies and be board eligible to take their Boards for Board Certification. Examples like Transplant and Burn surgery for General Surgeons, or PICU time in larger hospitals doing neonatal heart surgeries, or Reproductive Endocrine Oncology and Maternal Fetal Medicine for OB/GYN residents etc. to gain the required time in certain sub-specialties can be done elsewhere. We certainly could use more psychiatrists in this state! And our outpatient Internal Medicine doctors desperately need more help as most young general IM docs work as Hospitalists or go onto fellowship training.

What does it take to get our priorities straight? With the additional MD and DO schools in surrounding states, those students need residencies too. Wake up Idaho. Let's solve the problem instead of making it worse!!!

MSR