Arkansas Blog

Wonder what the development people over at 4301 W. Markham are thinking?<<

It would be wonderful for all concerned if they are thinking the new UAMS-Fayetteville is part of their
family. If the State is running such surpluses then why not a smidgen or two for the NWA corner since we're paying the bills for half of the state.
.

Have no doubt the W Markham and NWA folks are working together.

The push to NWA is coming from the folks on Markham, make no mistake about it. It's part of a long, futile effort to force students to stay in rural areas which occurs through a variety of mechanisms including the much publicized forced rural community match and congressional district quotas.

The reputation of UAMS is far overhyped. It's a mediocre medical school and academic hospital. Now UAB, that's an outstanding state medical school in a Southern state. The same is true of UT-Southwestern. The fact is UAMS has difficulty drawing quality residents to Arkansas as is. Diluting what we have by adding a poorly funded rural satellite to bring more doctors to small communities (yes, this is the intention of UAMS' second campus) makes little sense. Instead of being taught by academic physicians they will be taught by private physicians far inferior to those available at St Vincent's and Baptist, where the students could continue to live in the same residence and attend conferences and lectures with the rest of their class. That would allow for expansion without dilution of education. Getting to the point, we already are struggling to make UAMS competitive. Dilute this with a third rate satellite in a corner of the state and it becomes even less significant compared to our neighbors.

UAMS acts like this split medical campus theme is a common thing, in fact it is incredibly rare. Kansas is an aberration, not the norm, and like UAMS their reputation is not anything to be envied. Did anybody ask anyone at UAMS to tell you five other medical schools where this occurs? They can't. Has anyone looked into the reputation of the satellite campus in Wichita? It's not much, I can tell you.

NWA gets its fair share of revenue. Last I checked the University of Arkansas is still located there. Spend the tax money that would fund this on the University of Arkansas, make it an even better school. Add new programs there, particularly graduate programs and doctorates. That would add something to the state we currently lack rather than diluting what we already have.

Who cares what the folks at 4301 Markham are thinking right now. The people of Arkansas are thinking "Yay, more doctors! Maybe I'll live longer!"

Seriously, you've got to get over the NWA penis envy.

Aporkalypse quickly turned this into a Central vs. Northwest Arkansas thing, which doesn't surprise me.

The truth is that in a few years, if not already, half the people in Arkansas will live in the Northwest part of the state. I won't even get into where the bulk of the state's tax revenue comes from but I will say this. The medical care in this part of the state is very substandard and most of that is because we lack a medical school/research facility. As a result, it's very hard to find specialists up here.

I know someone whose 4 year old son has leukemia(sp?) and invariably once or twice a week they would have to drive him to Little Rock or take the Medi-Flight down there because of the lack of doctors here that can perform that type of treatment.

This isn't about rural doctors or Northwest Arkansas getting more than it's fare share of the money. It's about half the state's population having to face the possibility of driving 4 hours in the middle of the night to reach a specialist that we should already have.

Also, as someone else said, it's not like UAMS is all that great, either. It's just the only one in the state so everyone thinks it's great. Memphis and St. Louis, for example, have far superior hospitals.

"The truth is that in a few years, if not already, half the people in Arkansas will live in the Northwest part of the state."

Wow. Are you that out of touch to sincerely believe that? Census.gov is a good place to look for facts.

I fail to see how I turned it into a NWA vs LR issue, my comments were made in response to previous posters. I'd rather see tax money spent on UAMS as opposed to a redundant third rate medical school satellite. I think it would help all of Arkansas more, including NWA.

The fact is, the UAMS Northwest campus is not designed to help solve any of the problems you are concerned about. It will not include fellowships and will not train specialists, it is designed to train primary care physicians (which already are glad to move to NWA). There will not be a pediatric hematologist/oncologist or bone marrow transplant physician brought to NWA as part of the UAMS proposal that could help your son, whom I sincerely wish the best. There will not be a NWA Children's Hospital,The teachers will be the medical community already there, meaning the doctors you think so poorly of will be the ones training new physicians and the residents (largely from India and the Middle East) that are unlucky enough to end up there. UAMS does not intend to hire physicians to work or teach the way they do at the main campus. NWA gets more than its share of the best trainees UAMS produces now, they are glad to move there. Generally LR and NWA split the cream of the crop. I think adding the medical school branch hurts the NWA medical community more than it helps but what do I know? I'm just a UAMS College of Medicine graduate.