Medical Matches

Is Springfield gaining a medical school?

Earlier this month, leaders from Mercy Springfield Communities, CoxHealth, Missouri State University and the University of Missouri School of Medicine converged on the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce to announce a new agreement and funding for medical training in the Queen City.

Though it was a joint announcement, the incoming money will fund two separate programs – an MU clinical campus and an MSU occupational therapy program. The funding for both efforts was carved out by state lawmakers in the 2015 legislative session due to collaboration of parties that know each other best as competitors.

“Springfield, it has been noted, is one of the larger communities without a medical school, so there is kind of a natural evolution that’s occurred,” CoxHealth CEO Steve Edwards said.

That evolution, which has happened through talks and plans discussed during the past eight years, has brought together unlikely partners: MSU and MU, CoxHealth and Mercy, and the Republicans and Democrats who worked together to secure the funding.

“None of this would have happened if polar opposites weren’t working together. That doesn’t happen that often,” Edwards said, adding the collaboration with Mercy spreads the load for training across both medical staffs.  

A combined $11.3 million is coming to Springfield in the state’s current fiscal year through MU’s educational medicine expansion and MSU’s occupational therapy program.

Edwards said the Springfield clinical campus program permits Cox and Mercy to more effectively recruit well-trained doctors. It also begins to address a demand for training.

“MU is a relatively small medical school, as medical schools go with only 96 students, and there are so many talented students in Missouri who can’t get in who have the same kind of credentials,” Edwards said. “The difference between the first 96 candidates and the next 200 is almost negligible.”

He said for MU to grow, its students need to be in clinical settings beyond what the city of Columbia could provide alone.

The clinical campus plans include a new medical-school building in Columbia to take on new students, according to Medicine.Missouri.edu. In all, lawmakers secured $36 million for MU’s expansion, with $32.9 million slated for a new building in Columbia and $3.3 million set aside for Springfield’s administrative building. According to Medicine.Missouri.edu, about $10 million will come to the Queen City annually to support clinical-campus operations.  

MSU President Clif Smart said the university has no plans to invest some $300 million it could cost to get a full medical school program off the ground, but it is in talks with MU officials about supporting their efforts in Springfield.

“We have no role in the partnership between Cox, Mercy and MU med school. What we are in talks about, and both us and MU are interested in, are things we could do to connect with their students and provide for them through this experience,” Smart said.

“They would like their MU med students to use (MSU’s Taylor Health and Wellness Center), so they’re not getting their health care from the same place in which they’re going to med school. They would like their students to be able to use the Foster rec center; they’d like their students to have a Bear pass, so they could go to athletic events, lectures and concerts – those kinds of things. And we are in conversations with them about putting together a pricing structure for us to supply student services to the med students.”

Smart said MSU is prohibited from developing a medical school under state statutes. The MSU name change in 2005 came with stipulations it would not duplicate certain professional programs that already existed within the MU system, such as training for medical doctors, dentists, pharmacists, lawyers and architects.

“This is what MU does. It is much more within their wheelhouse, and it is much more efficient and financially responsible for them to expand the med school they already have than for somebody else to try to create one from scratch,” Smart said.

Simultaneously, MSU has secured $1.3 million for its OT program that will enroll 24 students in the fall and train 48 occupational therapists annually. The program comes online as MSU looks to open its new $14.1 million O’Reilly Clinical Health Sciences Center.

Dr. David Barbe, regional division president of Mercy Clinic Springfield, said clinical students would begin to trickle into the area next year because MU moved forward last year with plans to accept additional first-year students.

“MU began admitting eight additional students last fall,” Barbe said.

“They’ve just finished their first year, and they’ll be starting their second year in August. They will come here at the beginning of their third year.”

He said as many as 12 could come to town for the fall 2016 semester and up to 20 the following year to be split between Mercy and CoxHealth. By 2018, around 30 physicians-in-training are projected to come to the Queen City to work side-by-side with doctors.

Students will be in Springfield during most of their third and fourth years, Barbe said, and MU would staff its administrative building, which would be at an existing office space. That site hasn’t been selected, he said, but the parties are looking for a 5,000 square-foot-space on neutral ground – likely on South National Avenue.

Students would have some study and sleeping areas at Mercy and Cox hospitals – for late-night shifts – and the administrative hub would be home to MU staff, as well as provide additional space for study, conference meetings or classroom needs.

“That’s the beauty of a community clinical campus. The third- and fourth-years are, by and large, learning at the elbow of an experienced physician. Yes, there would be some lectures, if you want to think of it in that way, but they will be much less formal and structured. The first and second years have more of the traditional classroom experience,” he said.  

While Mercy – Springfield’s largest employer with over 9,000 local employees – is in the middle of trimming its area staff by more than 125, those are largely administrative positions and would not affect the clinical campus initiative, Barbe said.

“There is still some very robust recruiting going on,” he said.

Edwards said the local need is great for both physicians and occupational therapists. Within a 50-mile radius, he said last month there were over 4,000 openings in health care.

“Not only is the aging population causing more need in the future, but that generation of baby boomers is in the workforce. They are both leaving the workforce and requiring more care,” he said.