By FITSNews || An effort by the University of South Carolina to create a new medical school in the Upstate has lawmakers in the Lowcountry and Midlands regions of the state up in arms.
And while USC is claiming that its partnership with the Greenville Hospital System won’t cost taxpayers a dime, that’s what the school originally said about “Innovista” – the failed research campus that has drained around $150 million from S.C. taxpayers over the last five years, with another $154 million tax dollars about to be poured down the same drain.
Wherever the funding is coming from, the proposed school has set off a major regional battle at the State House. While Upstate legislators support the plan, numerous Lowcountry and Midlands lawmakers are rallying against the proposal – including powerful Charleston RINO Chip Limehouse, whose committee sets higher ed budgets and who aided the University last year in whitewashing its Innovista mess. Limehouse and other Lowcountry lawyers want to protect the Medical University of South Carolina from any “public-private” competition, yet another sign of just how far this state has strayed from the concept of a free market economy.
Anyway, in keeping with USC’s paranoia over the plan its board of trustees has reportedly delayed a vote on the controversial partnership until after lawmakers hold trustee elections in April. According to several state lawmakers who spoke with FITS on condition of anonymity, this delay is designed to help two of USC’s more liberal board members, former “whites only” country club member William C. Hubbard and golden parachute recipient Mack Whittle.
Apparently, USC believes that a sizable number of lawmakers would be less inclined to support Hubbard and Whittle if they were to cast votes in support of the controversial plan.
First of all, let’s address the merits of this ridiculous proposal. South Carolina already has two medical schools – one at the aforementioned Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, S.C. and the other at the University of South Carolina in Columbia. That’s already one too many medical schools for a state of four million people, if you ask us, and neither one of those institutions has shown much in the way of fiscal discipline. Furthermore, this is precisely the sort of duplication that our state can’t afford to perpetuate given the abnormally high percentage of our state budget that already goes toward higher ed.
According to the latest data available from the National Association of State Budget Officers (NASBO), South Carolina currently spends 17.8 percent of its budget on a bloated, wasteful, duplicative and inefficient system of higher education. The average state spends only 10.1 percent of its budget on higher ed.
Also, Hubbard and Whittle – along with Gov. Mark Sanford’s appointment, Darla Moore – have a proven record of supporting precisely the sort of wasteful projects (i.e. Innovista) that have taxpayers seeing red and parents paying through the nose for college tuition.
That’s why we plan on calling out any lawmaker who votes for either one of them come April …
By Myles Keogh March 17, 2010 at 12:09 pm
I have posted this before regarding the INNOVISTA boondoggle and will post it again with this caveat regarding adding another Med school to this State. The Board of Trustees at Carolina along with President Pesticides and the State legislators who supported the wasteful fraud that is Innovista and now this med school all need to be run out of town on a rail!!!!
Carolina has been run and continues to be administered and led by a bunch of incompetent, old geriatric farts who love to spend taxpayer money and accept nothing but mediocrity when it comes to academics and athletics. They are a complete and utter disaster and they only way that will change is when they and their buddies in state legislature are voted out!
By aeb March 17, 2010 at 12:28 pm
“Limehouse and other Lowcountry lawyers…”
You may want to edit that one.
By Ynotfirst March 17, 2010 at 1:21 pm
the Columbia USC medical school gives out diplomas that aren’t worth the paper they are written on. residents at Richland go around with any supervision. the residents in Columbia frequently make life and death decisions , oh let’s say 1 and 2 months out of medical school, without supervision people.
stay away from the Richland ER people. the residents are by and large very very dangerous there.
Now MUSC, that’s a different ballgame. their docs that finish the program actually have some knowledge as to how to treat human beings.
the USC School of Medicine produces mediocre physicians that have absolutely no people skills.
By LowcountryGamecock March 17, 2010 at 1:28 pm
No mention of the new osteopathic “doctor factory” in Spartanburg that will churn out hundreds of subpar practitioners.
http://www.spartanburgregional.com/_layouts/NewsEventsData/NewsDetail.aspx?WebId=%7B04F1D11D-9F96-4EC9-93D5-047EF0014805%7D&ListId=%7B8007C9DE-396C-4567-AB82-01AB8AE87C82%7D&ItemId=222
By Village Idiot March 17, 2010 at 1:31 pm
Chip Limehouse passing the bar exam would be a sure sign of the apocalypse.
I agree FITS that SC already has one med school too many. USC Med School exists solely to (try to) assuage the inferiority/mediocrity complex of USC grads in the General Assembly. There is no other justification.
I could argue that there is a greater need for a med school in Greenville than in Columbia. Greenville is a long way Charleston (Columbia is not). Greenville is also the geographical center of a tri-state area (okay not much of GA) that is not served by a school of medicine. A med school in Greenville could possibly work out a deal with the State of NC to subsidize students from WNC. Having said that, the obvious schools to host such a medical school would be Furman or Clemson. Why would a start-up school want to be saddled from the outset with the mediocrity/inferiority complex of that crowd in Columbia.
By CNSYD March 17, 2010 at 1:49 pm
None of them can compete with the finest medical school in South Carolina, which is the Clemson University School of Medicine.
By No Way! March 17, 2010 at 3:12 pm
I would only support a plan that closes USC Columbia School of Medicine to open a school in Greenville. Otherwise, we truly have one too many medical schools in South Carolina. It is true that graduates of the USC-SOM have a more difficult time matching to residency and tend to enter less recognized and less rigorous programs.
By No Way! March 17, 2010 at 3:12 pm
It boggles the mind that USC is considering starting a school in Greenville while MUSC is being cut another 20%. It goes to show you how out of touch they are with reality.
By The BOSS March 17, 2010 at 3:26 pm
This is an utter joke! USC should close its medical school. Talk about mediocrity and poorly training physicians, they should be embarrassed to hold an annual graduation! My understanding is that they created this school to satisfy the legislators from the midlands.
By Western Wilds March 17, 2010 at 4:44 pm
“And while USC is claiming that it’s partnership with the Greenville Hospital System won’t cost taxpayers a dime…”
It should be “its,” not “it’s.”
When it’s possessive, apostrophes shouldn’t be used.
By . March 17, 2010 at 5:15 pm
1) the USC and MUSC med schools need to combine – as the pharmacy schools already have done so between USC and MUSC
2) the two boards and alumni need to stop blocking the consolidation and get over the ego trip of separate boards; most med schools around the country are dropping enrollment and cutting costs – not in south carolina!
3) even the faculty at the USC school of medicine think that the expansion into Greenville is extremely ill-advised when they are facing a 21% cut. The immediate money for the expansion is coming out of the top secret slush fund practice plan funding, which could be used locally.
4) the expansion into Greenville is the post-retirement ego-toy of Andrew Sorensen and the fired med school ex-Dean, now vice-president, Don DiPette
5) President Pastides initiated the expansion when he was Vice-President of Health Science and strongly supports the expansion in the face of 21% cuts.
6) the USC board of trustees wants the expansion for their own egos, and there is nobody to stop them, once they get past the State House elections.
By Dr. Know March 17, 2010 at 6:01 pm
To most logically maximize utilization of existing infrastructure, the class size at MUSC College of Medicine should be doubled while USC-School of Medicine in Columbia should be closed completely. Students at the expanded MUSC COM would complete their first two years (basic science coursework) in Charleston, and their third- and fourth-year clinical training would be spent rotating at clinical sites in Charleston, Columbia, and Greenville.
This proposal would increase the total number of graduating physicians while allowing concentration of funding at one primary location. Enhancement of pre-existing facilities and increased numbers of faculty would offset the disadvantages of a larger class size during the first two years. Rotating at clinical sites in each of South Carolina’s major population centers would expose students to a more diverse patient population and ultimately improve the quality of clinical training.
Of course, legislative egos in Columbia would prevent anything this logical from happening.
By No Way! March 17, 2010 at 7:36 pm
I can tell you from inside experience that most medical schools are not cutting class sizes. In fact, they are growing class sizes just to make ends meet. MUSC has been cut so severely that we take 30 out of state students just to charge excessive out of state fees (70k / year). I think the idea of consolidation and then 3rd and 4th year in other areas of SC makes good sense however. I know that MUSC’s class size is maxed out with the new out of state students. We have about 180 per year as a result. As for expense, the state supports less than 15% of MUSC’s annual budget. It would be interesting to see how much of USC-COM annual budget is state money.
By . March 17, 2010 at 8:18 pm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2010-03-04-medical-schools_N.htm
“Economy forces some medical schools to shrink classes” USA Today 3/4/10
Up until recently, there was an AAMC push to increase enrollment in med schools, but now they are actually shrinking enrollment due to the economy – but not in south carolina, despite the grim economic climate.
By No Way! March 17, 2010 at 9:53 pm
I think you are missing the point. MUSC has been growing its medical school class to raise funds to replace the lost revenue of the state infusion. We have been cut 50% so far. Thus, 30 students per year at 60k each = 1,800,000 dollars. Thus, we are not even considering cutting class size. To cut the class size does not decrease the operating cost of a building, facility, ect.
By Don't know what you are talking about March 18, 2010 at 8:46 am
Maybe Greenville Hospital System needs to be talking to MUSC instead of USC? MUSC’s total budget is bigger than Clemson and USC combined and it receives much less state funding than either of the other two schools. I looked it up and MUSC gets about 60M from the state and Medical College of Georgia, same size school, gets 160M per year from the state of Georgia. MUSC is higher ranked and more on the cutting edge than MCG! Great job MUSC!
By Beeza March 18, 2010 at 9:13 am
It would seem USC has few options with their medical school. If I remember correctly from the very factual and diligently researched news (cough, cough, “ahem”) articles of FITS NEWS, MUSC doesn’t want to merge. They like their unimpeded ability to build towers and silos “down theya on tha bat-try”.
Driving by the ancient, dilapidated medical school facilities in Columbia, it would seem that the renovation and updating of this school would just be a ridiculous fiscal exercise. The political fall out of actually moving the medical school to Greenville, where there is a world class medical facility already in place with the technologically updated space and capacity to accommodate the medical school, would seem equally unpleasant. As you point out there is no $$ to build a new one.
So, this “partnership” seems the only alternative for the USC medical school. From all of the media describing this partnership, it’s as much about research (and includes Clemson) as it is just about pumping out more direly needed doctors and nurses. It takes the research to get the grant funding to run the facility since our state budget is for all intents and purposes bankrupt.
Instead of maligning the individuals who have graciously given their volunteer time and devotion to our State’s colleges and universities, perhaps the more pertinent discussion would be term limits for these positions at all of the state schools. The idea of combining the boards was just a Sanford power play and I wouldn’t give that a minute of consideration just ’cause that dingleberry thought it up.
By jimbo March 18, 2010 at 10:57 am
How about a reality check. First, the USC-SOM is a pretty good deal for the state of South Carolina. The state supplies only about 18% of its operating budget. Furthermore, while MCAT and GPA scores for incoming students are virtually identical for USC-SOM and MUSC (see http://www.mcattestscores.com/usmedicalschoolsmcatscoresGPA.html), USC-SOM trains a higher percentage of primary care physicians who will stay and practice in-state.
Here’s a news flash: the hot-shot MUSC neurosurgeon wannabe with dollar signs in his eyes probably isn’t going to commit to a career treating low-income diabetes patients in Barnwell.
My point isn’t to support expansion of USC-SOM into Greenville. That might be a bad idea right now for a variety of reasons. The current arrangement where several USC-SOM students go to Greenville for their 3rd/4th year clinical rotations works well, but this is not the time for expansion to a full 4-year med school. Rather, my point was to answer some of the USC-SOM bashing going on here from people who are talking out of their ass.
By Seymour Glass March 18, 2010 at 11:07 am
Sic, just a FYI… you might want to look into the contributions recently given to House members (and the House caucus) by the Golden Parachute, himself, and William Hubbard (and/or his NMRS partners, affiliates), both of whom you noted earlier are up for re-election to the USC board. And, in my opinion, the Speaker is going to drag them across the finish line for some blind pursuit of the boondoggle of all state boondoggles.
By NachoMama March 19, 2010 at 12:20 pm
Jimbo,
First, that website’s listing of GPAs/MCATs is not accurate…I’ll leave it at that.
Second, many USC-SOM grads become specialists despite the stated mission of the school to train primary care physicians for South Carolina. Given that USC SOM has a class size about half the size of MUSC COM’s, it’s not surprising that a higher percentage pursue primary care–but what about actual numbers of grads going into primary care fields?
By Soft Sigh From Hell March 19, 2010 at 6:52 pm
It’s hard to imagine that the old up country vs. low country contentions aren’t involved here at least a bit. If I were a rabid Greenvillian (Greenvillite? Greenvillusian?) I’d probably be a bit chagrined at the lack of state educational investment in that major city. Sure, Clemson isn’t all that far away, nor USC Upstate, and private Furman and Bob Jones (cough) “University” are there, but still and all Charleston has three public universities in the city and Columbia four within about 50 miles. You know these things matter to the region-over-state types and the city booster sorts.