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MSU reaches record increase for medical school enrollment

October 21, 2007

Amid preparations for a new medical facility, MSU joined other universities nationwide in achieving record medical school enrollment numbers for 2007, according to statistics released by the Association of American Medical Colleges, or AAMC.

While first-year enrollees increased by 2.3 percent across the country, MSU led all universities with a 47.2 percent increase from last year.

“Last year, MSU announced that we were expanding our medical school class size in preparation for our four-year program in Grand Rapids,” said Denise Holmes, assistant dean for the College of Human Medicine.

The first four-year class for the Grand Rapids location, now in the planning phases, is expected in 2010.

In June of 2006, the AAMC called for a 30 percent increase in admissions for U.S. medical schools to offset an impending shortage in the field. As most medical schools did, MSU responded.

“The U.S. population is increasing and aging and we expect to see a higher demand for health care services among the elderly and baby boomers,” said Rajeev Sabharwal, senior researcher for the AAMC’s Center for Workforce Studies.

“At the same time, one-third of the nation’s physicians are over the age of 55 and will likely retire by 2020, and the newer generation of physicians aren’t willing to work the long hours that their older colleagues traditionally worked,” Sabharwal said.

The AAMC reported that 106 students were enrolled in MSU’s program in 2006, while 156 were enrolled for 2007.

Aron Sousa, the medical school’s senior associate dean for academic affairs, said the MSU medical school’s expansion to Grand Rapids likely influenced the enrollment increase.

“The fact that the college is expanding attracted another group of applicants to the college,” he said. “The idea of being involved in something new surely attracted them.”

Sousa said the university has established partnerships with medical facilities in Grand Rapids such as the Van Andel Institute, Spectrum Health and Saint Mary’s Health Care. University research will include neurological sciences, cardiovascular illness, cancer and maternal child care.

“Those sorts of areas are areas that everyone is interested in,” he said. “Those are very much tied to the interests and collaboration with our partners.”

Holmes said the university hopes to expand the medical school’s class size to approximately 200 to coincide with the Grand Rapids site’s opening in 2010.

“That will make us on the middle to large size,” she said. “Medical schools vary quite a bit, but when you get up to 200, it’s pretty big.”

Since MSU does not have a hospital of its own, students earn experience at 13 hospitals and six community campuses around Michigan, Holmes said.

“The fact that we are using community hospitals across the state gives us a greater potential than if we were restricted to a single hospital around the campus at MSU, so it gives us an advantage,” she said.

Sousa added that the increase in applications is beneficial to the school.

“You want to have the best people you can,” he said. “Every institution likes to have its pick of applicants. There’s a very strong humanistic side to medicine beyond all the biomedical science. Our admissions process has a strong emphasis on that and we do really well at producing the best physicians.”

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