“In the long run, I think the pros outweigh any cons,” said junior bio/pre-med major T.J. Gallant. “Having it would separate us from many other schools in its category.  With it, QU would be a place for undergraduates, law students and medical students to receive at least a master’s and I think that’s huge.”

Junior Melissa DiBacco agreed.

“Being a junior and wanting to go to medical school right after graduation, in 2011, the Quinnipiac medical school would not be an option for me,” DiBacco, a bio/pre-med major, said. “However, I think Quinnipiac opening a medical school is great. It will open up more interest to the school at the undergraduate level and really put this school on the map.”

Currently, the University of Connecticut and Yale University are the only two universities in the state that have medical schools.

“I would not consider going because the school would not have a name for itself yet,” said junior Carli Phillips, a bio/pre-med major. “Yes, Quinnipiac has established itself when it comes to health sciences and its [physical therapy] and [physician's assistant] programs, along with some of the other programs here, but it has yet to make a name for itself when it comes to medicine.

“It is going to be difficult for QU to make a name for itself in the beginning because we have Yale just down the road and the University of Connecticut not too far away either.”

Quinnipiac’s medical school will cost an estimated $75 million over the next seven or eight years, but according to President John Lahey, no current University programs will be affected, no money will be pulled from the endowment, and no loans will be taken out.

“We’re not living beyond our means,” Lahey said in a Chronicle interview on Thursday. “We never do.”

The money will come from a reserve fund that has been building since the “belt-tightening” of the past few years, Lahey said. The fund currently contains about $35 million, and Lahey expects $50 or $60 million by the end of the academic year.

Media credit: Joe Pelletier

“By then, we will pretty much have the cash in hand,” Lahey said. “So there will be no reduction in any other area of the institution.”

Forty million dollars will go toward renovations of the North Haven campus, which will begin this summer. Another $35 million from the University will subsidize salaries and expenses until the medical school begins running at its 500-student capacity.

The most immediate steps include finding a dean for the medical school, which Lahey hopes to accomplish this summer. The dean and additional administrators will then build a curriculum, which is to focus on primary care and global health.

A planned synthesis of the medical school and the Albert Schweitzer Institute will allow medical students to spend time working with primary care in developing countries, Lahey said.

“We think that can be a special niche for us,” Lahey said. “Given our Schweitzer Institute, we can give our medical students some unique experiences that other medical schools couldn’t do.”

Associate Professor of Nursing Lynn Price, chairperson of the nursing department, said the focus on primary care was appropriate, especially with Quinnipiac’s connection to developing countries.

“It’s very forward-looking,” Price said. “Global health starts with primary care. We need to be preventing things like diabetes, not treating it.”

Renovations of the first floor of the North Haven campus’ Building 2, which will house the medical school, will begin this summer. The University will take control of the second and third floor in October 2012, where it expects to have a year to complete renovations before its first incoming class.

One of the “major challenges,” according to Lahey, will be the search for a health system clinical partner, which the University hopes to nail down in the next six months. Lahey is on the Board of Trustees at the Yale-New Haven Hospital, however, the hospital is currently the teaching hospital of Yale’s medical school.

“Most of their resources are taken up by Yale’s medical school,” Lahey said. “If we are going to do something with the Yale-New Haven Hospital system, it will most likely be [with] the Bridgeport hospital and the Greenwich hospital.

“There are a lot of resources in Connecticut,” Lahey said, though he did not rule out a New York hospital system.

While the president understood that Quinnipiac’s medical school would probably start off at “the bottom of the pecking order,” he was hopeful that the school would quickly distinguish itself.

“We’re not looking just to have a medical school,” Lahey said. “We want a first-rate medical school.”

Quinnipiac University will begin the process of opening a medical school, President John L. Lahey announced Thursday morning.

The medical school, which will be located on the North Haven Campus, is planned to open in 2013 or 2014.  The first class will enroll about 50 students, while the school will eventually have 500, according to the Associated Press.

The plan, approved by the school’s board of trustees, is expected to cost $75 million.

A year of internal study and a six-month study conducted by outside experts deemed the medical school feasible for the University.

Photo Credit: Joe Pelletier

“Two major challenges that must be successfully met are securing a major hospital/health system clinical partner and meeting the very high and demanding accreditation standards of the Liaison Committee on Medical Education,” Lahey said in a press release. “Quinnipiac will turn its immediate attention to these two requirements and goals.”

Quinnipiac’s medical school will focus on primary care and global health.

“A medical school is the next logical extension for Quinnipiac since we now prepare so many other essential members of the health care team,” Quinnipiac’s Dean of the School of Health Sciences Edward O’Connor said.

The school will begin searching for a hospital or health care partner and accreditation through the Liaison Committee on Medical Education.  The LCME, according to its Web site, accredits schools that grant a doctor of medicine degree.  The Association of American Medical Colleges, which accredits 131 medical schools nationwide, sponsors LCME.

The North Haven campus, where the medical school will be located, was purchased from WellPoint, Inc. in Sept. 2007.   Currently, the School of Health Sciences occupies one building on the North Haven campus.

Through the agreement, the University leases back three buildings to the Blue Cross and Blue Shield association, of which WellPoint is an independent licensee.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield will phase out use of the North Haven campus over the next 10 years, at which point Quinnipiac will assume control of the buildings. The University’s plan is to renovate the buildings once they have control over them to turn them into classrooms, study rooms and labs.

The University of Connecticut School of Medicine and the Yale School of Medicine are currently the only two universities in the state to operate a medical school.  Currently, there are 89 universities in the United States that have both law and medical schools.
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