School of Medicine looks ahead

The University of Nevada School of Medicine is a statewide public medical school that has been training future physicians in Nevada, conducting groundbreaking research and working with Nevada’s healthcare institutions for the past 47 years.

The School of Medicine is currently working to prepare for the school’s future.

“We are in the middle of a very important and powerful strategic planning process,” Dr. Thomas Schwenk, the Dean of the School of Medicine, said. “We are going to look thoroughly at who we are and who we serve.”

According to statistics from the School of Medicine for the 2015-2016 academic year, the school’s 761 total students serve more than 150,000 patients in clinics and more than 45,000 patients in hospitals each year.

Addressing the lack of primary care physicians in Nevada is an issue that the School of Medicine has been working on for many years.

“We have had a primary care shortage for a long time,” Dr. Schwenk said.

The anticipated growth in the region from new companies settling in northern Nevada and the large supply of jobs is intensifying the issue. As more families move to the area there will be a need for more physicians.

“All of that was already in play but now it is much more critical,” Dr. Schwenk said. “(The growth) has heightened what was already an issue.”

The school is working to provide more clinical residency’s in northern Nevada for medical students.

“The key issue is that the school for many, many years has been split,” Dr. Schwenk said. “Students would do their preclinical work in Reno and then their clinical residencies in Las Vegas.”

They are working with Northern Nevada HOPES and Community Health Alliance to provide new rotations for clinical residences to help serve the under insured population. Partnerships like these will make medical students more visible in the northern Nevada community.

The School of Medicine also works with a wide range of other community partners including, Renown Health, MountainView Hospital, University Medical Center, Aurora Diagnostics, Veterans Health Administration Hospitals and Saint Mary’s Regional Medical Center.

While the University of Nevada School of Medicine is currently the only public medical school in Nevada, they won’t be for much longer.

UNLV is currently in the accreditation process to open the UNLV School of Medicine, which is scheduled to begin in fall 2017, and the privately owned Roseman University College of Medicine, located in Las Vegas, is also scheduled to start accepting medical students in 2017.

According to Dr. Schwenk, the opening of two new medical schools on the horizon is very positive for the state.

“If (medical students) go to school and train here they have a very high likelihood that they will stay here,” Dr. Schwenk said.