Looks like plans for a University of Texas medical school in Austin are flat lining. Dr. Kenneth Shine, UT System’s executive vice chancellor for health affairs, told members of the
Senate Finance Committee that plans for an Austin medical school “were on hold and off the table.”
Shine blamed the economy and the university’s enormous loss in endowment funds that would have helped to build the school.
The idea that UT would build a medical school in Austin has long been a sore spot on the island, where residents were convinced some regents were planning the demise of the University of Texas Medical Branch.
Fears were heightened when UT System Board of Regents
approved layoffs of 3,800 people after Hurricane Ike swamped the campus and for months shut down revenue makers, including John Sealy Hospital. Some might have thought a push to build an Austin campus insensitive, to say the least.
Here are some other highlights from the Senate Finance Committee meeting Tuesday:
With all the fuss last week about
UT bonuses and double-digit losses in the system’s endowment, UTMB officials were forced to answer questions about its
scrapped plan to give $3 million in bonuses to some employees. Committee Chair Steve Ogden, a Republican from Bryan, wanted to remind everyone that it’s a no-no for UT governmental affairs employees to get bonuses for lobbying efforts.
Shine, who through some of the questioning sat beside UT Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa, assured lawmakers that the medical branch doesn’t dole out bonuses. Instead, it offers incentives for work agreed upon in advance. Such incentives help the medical branch stay competitive, Shine said.
What do you think?
Ogden also wanted to know whether the medical branch was able to heal its cash flow problems. Before the mass layoffs, UTMB reported losing about $40 million a month paying employees who had no place to work after the storm flooded the hospital and other campus buildings.
Things have turned around remarkably, Callender told lawmakers. The reduction in force freed up about $88 million and the Federal Emergency Management Agency also helped by advancing the medical branch $72 million for storm clean up, Callender said. The medical branch also has slowed capital improvement expenditures, he said.
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Don't bet on it. One year ago...
This report was originally published on February 13, 2008 in the Austin American-Statesman.
An Austin branch of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas is the "most likely" option for establishing a medical school here, and a decision on whether and how to proceed could come in four to six months, according to the head of health affairs for the UT System.
The comments by Executive Vice Chancellor Kenneth Shine during an interview Tuesday marked the first time a UT System official has sketched out such a timeline and characterized the prospects of a particular option for a medical school.
Shine, a Harvard-educated cardiologist and former president of the Institute of Medicine, oversees UT Southwestern and five other health campuses in the UT System. He has led the system's deliberations concerning a possible medical school in Austin for the past few years.
During the interview, he sounded optimistic but also cautious about the prospects in Austin, and seemed undeterred by the Texas A&M University System's plans for a Round Rock branch of its medical school.
Shine said an analysis prepared by Waco economist M. Ray Perryman and released Monday by the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce accurately portrayed a medical school here with close ties to UT-Austin as a potentially powerful engine for expanding life-sciences research, patient care and economic development.
"The synergism between a medical school and a first-class academic university is a synergism that is extraordinarily desirable and in my view could be accomplished," Shine said. "A campus here run by one of the University of Texas campuses, most likely Southwestern, makes eminently good sense.
"We are still examining " the feasibility of all this. This is a big, expensive operation. We're talking about hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars," he said.
A decision by the UT System Board of Regents to proceed is by no means a certainty, Shine said. Support from hospitals, the city, the business community, the hospital district and philanthropists will be crucial, he said.
"No matter how much we would like to see an expansion of medical research, education and patient care, the challenges to doing that, particularly the costs, are really substantial," he said.
"We cannot commit to that kind of development unless we know we're likely to have the resources for a first-class operation.
"I don't think the regents will commit to that unless they're sure the resources are available," he said.
Shine said UT Southwestern, "the premier medical school in the state," is in the best position to establish a medical school here.
If that came to fruition, substantial portions of programs in Austin sponsored by the UT Medical Branch at Galveston would likely be transferred to UT Southwestern, he said. Those programs include clinical rotations at Austin hospitals for third- and fourth-year UTMB medical students. Physicians here with UTMB appointments would have an opportunity to join the UT Southwestern faculty.
Some UTMB programs in Austin, including its operation of a women's hospital within the University Medical Center at Brackenridge , might remain in place, Shine said.
Officials have not determined where an Austin medical branch - if one were to be established - might be located. One possibility mentioned by Shine - and also by by Austin Mayor Will Wynn - is a parcel adjacent to UT-Austin's Dell Pediatric Research Institute, which is under construction at the site of the former Mueller airport.
The pediatric institute property itself could accommodate three additional research buildings and a clinic, perhaps in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Shine said.
Asked whether other parcels closer to UT-Austin, or even on the main campus, are also under consideration, Shine replied: "Everything's on the table."
— By Greg Roof
on Feb. 10 at 11:29 PM
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