Students will serve America’s most vulnerable populations

MESA, Ariz. (Sept. 18, 2006 ) – The American Osteopathic Association’s Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation has awarded provisional accreditation to A.T. Still University’s new college of osteopathic medicine in Mesa, Ariz. This represents the highest accreditation possible at this phase of development. The school’s unique curriculum will emphasize delivering whole person, compassionate care and cutting-edge science and technology. In addition, students will spend three of their four years in community health centers located in underserved communities.

The inaugural class of 100 students will enter the school in July 2007. The new medical school will operate in a 100,000-square-foot building on the 50-acre campus of A.T. Still University in Mesa, which is the anchor of the Arizona Health & Technology Park, a 132-acre, half-billion dollar education, healthcare, and technology park owned by the University and Vanguard Health Systems. The master plan for the new park includes hospitals, long-term and acute care facilities, student and senior housing, professional offices, a YMCA, and product development research facilities.

“By starting a school without old presumptions, we have an opportunity to use new medical research findings and technologies, as well as the latest cognitive principles,” says James J. McGovern, Ph.D., president of A.T. Still University.

“In the U.S., our current medical system is perceived as expensive, impersonal, and inefficient,” McGovern explains. “To solve these problems, we need to challenge the status quo, beginning with the way doctors are trained. We need to educate our new doctors to treat the whole person in mind, body, and spirit and to practice cost-effectively with integrity, compassion, and the latest technology. We also need to encourage them to be lifelong learners because the basis of knowledge is increasing every year.”

The newly named dean of the medical school, Douglas L. Wood, D.O., Ph.D., is the former president of the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine. He explains that the learning environment at the yet unnamed medical school will highlight a humanistic approach to education and healthcare. “Small study groups and problem solving will receive greater emphasis than lectures. Students will be educated in community health centers with wonderfully high ratios of physicians to students.”

Meeting a Growing Need

The new medical school will help meet a growing need for more physicians. Studies have estimated there will be a national shortage of as many as 200,000 physicians by 2020. This is due to several factors such as the growing number of people in their 70s, 80s, and 90s, the need for older people to see doctors more often, and the increasing number of physicians, especially women, taking early retirement.

The new school’s geographic location is also significant. Arizona has one of the fastest growing populations in the country and ranks near last in terms of medical school slots per capita. No one knows this better than Craig M. Phelps, D.O., FAOASM, who serves as provost of A. T. Still University’s Arizona School of Health Sciences and Arizona School of Dentistry, as well as primary care team physician to college and professional teams including the NBA’s Phoenix Suns.

According to Dr. Phelps, the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) helped provide the impetus for this new college. “Working with the Centers, we realized the critical shortage of doctors in underserved urban and rural areas. This will become even more critical as the physician shortage increases. The new medical school will partner with NACHC by utilizing Community Health Center sites across the nation as rotation destinations for medical students.” Dr. Phelps believes many of A.T. Still University’s students will return to communities of need and play a leading role in helping underserved individuals and neighborhoods.

“Medicine needs to reintroduce the concept of compassion,” says Phelps. “We have new knowledge and new technology, but unless today’s medical students understand the importance of compassion and the physician-patient relationship, America’s healthcare system will never meet patients’ real needs.”

MESA, Ariz. (Apr. 21, 2006 ) – National and local leaders in the fields of business, technology, and medical education have began convening for a series of quarterly meetings for discussion and vital input into the proposed medical school to be opened by A.T. Still University in Fall 2007 in Mesa, Arizona.  Three “Blue-Ribbon” Committees in business, medical education and technology have been appointed with influential leaders on a national and local level.  The first of these meetings was held March 24 by the Business Blue Ribbon Committee. On May 18-19 national experts in various segments of medical education will convene for the Medical Education Blue Ribbon Committee meeting in Scottsdale.   

A.T. Still University, founder of the nation’s first osteopathic medical school in 1892, is developing a medical school of the future that will implement an innovative educational model never used before in a U.S. medical school. An estimated 100 physicians will graduate from the school beginning in 2011. ATSU has selected a nationally recognized leader in the field of medical education, Dr. Douglas Wood, as the Dean of the proposed medical school.

Dr. Wood previously served as president of the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine (AACOM) for 10 years and has led the educational efforts of the osteopathic medical profession during that period. He has received numerous grants to study medical education, including the $7.6 million Undergraduate Medical Education for the 21st Century grant from 1997 to 2002. Dr. Wood was also dean of the College of Osteopathic Medicine at Michigan State University.

“We are delighted to have someone of Dr. Wood’s stature leading the new school,” said Craig Phelps, D.O., FAOASM, provost of ATSU-Mesa. “With his strong leadership and our experts on the Blue-Ribbon Panel Committee we will design an efficient medical school of the future that produces physicians that will treat the patient as a whole person, not just their symptoms.”

Many prominent Arizona business leaders are represented on the Business Blue-Ribbon Committee, including: Raymond A. Lamb, CEO of 1st National Bank of Arizona; Kent McClelland, President of Shamrock Foods; Reginald Ballantyne, III, Senior Corporate Officer for Abrazo Health Care, and Robert Uhl, Vice Chair of Bar-S Foods.

A.T. Still University has already demonstrated success with innovative technology and an advanced academic curriculum influenced by a Blue-Ribbon Committee when developing Arizona’s only dental school, the Arizona School of Dentistry & Oral Health, opened in 2003.  The first class will graduate May 19, 2007.

For more information about the Blue Ribbon Committees or the proposed medical school, contact Rodric Bradford, director of public relations for the Arizona School of Health Sciences at 480.219.6015 or rbradford@atsu.edu.