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Originally Posted by Tech House
That's a great article, I recommend it to everyone interested in the topic. It's exciting to see the vision for the med school and research center, and how it may contribute to the improvement of medical care and clinician training not just locally but throughout the nation, leading by example and serving as an incubator of new practices and approaches to health care.
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Not to go too off topic...but the article is just a puff-piece that doesn't really say anything. The leaders of the school clearly understand that their initial revenue comes from community taxes (they will quickly establish themselves and will have little worry about funding) and are saying the right things to make these stakeholders feel good. And the above quote seems to be evidence that it worked. That's fine, they are just playing the game well and I do not fault them on that at all. But I have to interject on the one thing that they just got obscenely wrong.
Basic scientists run most medical center? I honestly can't believe that this article actually said that. It is so grossly inaccurate that it is insulting to the reader. No one in healthcare can honestly think that the poor surgeons are looking to improve public health but the Ph.D.s are stopping them. Revenue generating clinicians, who also do
clinical research, run medical institutions. Those practitioners are certainly all about "defending and augmenting their territory" instead of collaborating inter-professionally because they generate huge amounts of revenue for themselves and their institution. Take a look at any list of Texas state employees salaries and that becomes abundantly clear. Right after UT Austin's athletic department, you will have surgeons and other high value clinicians. The basic scientists are very much lower on the totem pole at any medical school, and it is deliberately misleading to blame any lack of reform on them.
Every academic institution, hell every hospital, is "focused" on improving the health of their surrounding community. I guarantee it's probably in every mission and vision statement or document for strategic planning for anyone associated with healthcare. The only point to say this in the article is to make the reader feel good, and not really say anything groundbreaking. The problem lies in how that is implemented and what true priorities of the institutions will be. To that, nothing was actually really said beyond a few healthcare reform buzzwords every medical school in the country could use.
If you truly are looking at healthcare, almost everyone agrees that the root of the problem is expensively and often ineffectively treating disease late in the game and not focusing on effective primary care early. If that is what they actually do, with a focus on primary care education and inter-professional collaboration, then it will be truly a revolutionary school. However, with UT's track record, I guarantee they will be looking to build some highly ranked and respected specialty programs, and their students will certainly be looking to go into highly specialized and lucrative fields. Which is just like every medical school in the country. I guess we will all have to wait and see as the school establishes itself and starts to grow in prominence, as it most certainly will being at the University of Texas in Austin.
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No - high speed movement needs fast music from the 1920's. Something like Kitten on the Keys
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