KU School of Medicine-Wichita
ISSUE SUMMARY
The University of Kansas School of Medicine created a campus in Wichita 35 years ago for the purpose of educating more doctors for the state of Kansas. As a result of that action, almost half of all KU School of Medicine-Wichita current graduates go on to practice in Kansas . Nationally, only 29 percent of practicing physicians graduated from a school in the same state.
Despite the success of the KU School of Medicine, the state of Kansas is currently below the national average for physicians per 100,000 persons. In addition, Kansas has a mal-distribution of physicians reflected by low physician-per-100,000 ratios in all geographic regions but the Northeast (NE) region, with under-served populations prominent in rural regions. Kansas needs to purposefully expand its School of Medicine class size to meet this need by admitting qualified students most likely to remain in Kansas. Experience would suggest that training medical students in Kansas, but outside of the NE region, would increase the number of physicians willing to practice medicine in Kansas. Wichita would be the ideal place for an expansion of the capacity to train KU School of Medicine students.
Today, the Wichita Campus provides clinical training in the 3rd and 4th years of medical school. Pending funding and accreditation, the KU School of Medicine hopes to expand the Wichita Campus to a full, four-year curriculum, growing from 110 medical students to 250 in Wichita (the goal eventually is to have 50 new students for years 1 and 2 and 75 students for years 3 and 4). The goals for the initial practice site of students enrolled for four years in Wichita and Salina are:
- Wichita: 85 percent of students in central to western Kansas; 50 percent in rural Kansas; 50 percent in primary care
- Salina: 50 percent in rural Kansas; 50 percent in primary care
- Wichita and Salina: If approved, each site would add eight students in 2011. Salina would continue to admit eight students per year and Wichita would admit 28 in 2012 and eventually up to 50 students for the first and second year of medical training.
As such, qualified students with a strong likelihood of staying in Kansas and returning to rural areas will be recruited for the additional positions in this expansion. Currently, students who apply to the KUSOM complete a secondary application with demographic information about where they have lived and short answer questions about their interest in KUSOM. The medical school will add questions to it secondary application that ask applicants to rank and explain their preference for the Kansas City campus, Wichita campus, or the Salina campus. Campus assignment will favor student preference and consider potential for rural and/or primary care practice.
As a first step toward accreditation, the KU School of Medicine sent a proposal developed by Wichita and Kansas City faculty to the Liaison Committee for Medical Education (LCME) in December 2009. LCME has scheduled a site visit in July 2010.
ADOPTED ACTION OR POLICY
KMS expresses its support of the KUSM-Wichita program as it seeks to expand from a two-year to a four-year program. KMS will share its support of this expansion with the Kansas Board of Regents, the University of Kansas School of Medicine, and if needed the Kansas Legislature, and express our belief that the expansion will result in increased physicians available to deliver care across the entire state of Kansas.
Adopted by KMS House of Delegates on May 1, 2010.
