continued
Howard University College of Medicine Today Marion Mann, MD, Dean Washington, D.C.
I want to spend a few minutes talking about our College of Medicine's current status and its important role in the training of physicians. You already know much about Howard, but it is a constantly growing, changing, dynamic organism and one year is rarely the same as the preceeding year. The medical education world is different from that from which you emerged a few years ago - or many years ago - when you finished your medical education. The demands for health care are different, there is less solo practice than when many of you were graduated; costs have greatly escalated; malpractice costs are horrendous; individual states no longer
Presented at the Howard University Alumni Dinner, 82nd Annual Convention and Scientific Assembly of the National Medical Association, Bonaventure Hotel, Los Angeles, California, August 3, 1977.
898
write licensure examinations; job opportunities of great responsibility at national and local levels are waiting to be filled; there are many unserved areas which need to be served; and there are unanswered questions which cry out to be answered by diligent clinical research. These are the concepts we think about in the College of Medicine as we go about the business of training medical students. As importantly, these and other concepts must be remembered as we plan a strategy for the Howard of the 1980s and 1990s. As the alumni and stewards of medical education at Howard today, we would be shortsighted indeed if we failed to realize that if Howard is to have a strong faculty and effective programs, as we turn into the 21st Century, the foundations must be laid now.
What Is the College's Status Today? During the past year, we went through one of those "once-everyseven-years" accreditation surveys, and
I am delighted to report that we were commended by the accreditation body and given full accreditation for the next seven years. Our student body is a capable, enthusiastic, and involved group of about 450 - an optimum number for our success in providing quality education with the resources at our disposal. Their academic excellence is commendable as attested by 77 percent of our sophomores passing Part I of the National Board Examinations this past summer. Ninety-five percent of our seniors passed Part II the first time around. Our faculty has grown in strength and we are working on recruiting additional faculty in certain key areas. They have a real concern for students; a greater percentage of them now conduct all of their professional activity - teaching and private practice - in our superb new Howard University Hospital which replaced the obsolete Freedmen's structure which many of you remember. Many of them are producing worthwhile research
JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, VOL. 69, NO. 12, 1977
projects. I cannot pay too much tribute to our faculty. We had giants in the past such as Drew, Greene, Payne, J. B. Johnson, Harden, Ross, etc., and we still have Jason, Frank Jones, Joe Johnson, Walter Booker, Moses Young, and Monty Cobb for advice and consultation. But current progress is the product of much planning and dedication on the part of similarly talented faculty members - at the senior professor level and junior faculty level - and they also deserve a tribute. Our budget includes about $10 million in University funds, $1.5 million in student financial aid (mainly from outside sources), $3- 4 million in research, about $4 million in development and training grants, and about $48 million annually for the Howard University Hospital. While discussing budget, I might mention a grant which was disapproved by HEW recently: a request for almost one-half million dollars for implementing our improved curriculum. We were informed last week that the reason for our failure to receive the grant was that the review committee disapproved of our requirement of the National Board examinations, claiming that this would decrease the retention of our students. We maintain that if the National Board requirement is correctly applied and students receive adequate academic support, retention will not be diminished. We can show that 77 percent passed this summer and we anticipate that in September more than 95 percent will have passed. And we can show that since the individual states stopped writing their own examinations, some graduates have been unable to get a license to practice medicine. Such MDs are less able to pass the basic science parts of the National Board examinations or the Federation Licensing Examination (FLEX) after they have been out of school for a year or two than they would have been as sophomores. We feel there is no merit in a policy which involves retention only at the medical school level and which does not ensure retention in clinical practice - that is, licensure. I suspect that those committee members who voted against our grant were too much influenced by those who campaigned against our procedures, or perhaps by
a Washington Post article, written by people who have had no experience in black medical education. I feel that our 1 10 years of experience at Howard make us the world's experts - if there be any experts - and that we deserve support in a special project which suits our needs. And we will go on seeking these funds - from HEW, from foundations or corporations, from friends, and fund-raising events - wherever the money can be found to carry on this highly successful and important project. In the area of capital improvements, three new buildings are under construction: the Cancer Center building will be completed next summer; the Seeley G. Mudd Pre-clinical Building - to which many of you contributed - will be ready in the late fall of 1978; and an addition to the library will be completed at about the same time. We have healthy affiliations with other institutions: D.C. General Hospital is absolutely crucial in our total program. We accept into our junior class up to five students who have completed the basic sciences at the CCNY program. We have agreed to accept up to seven students who will complete the basic sciences in the new Morehouse program. We are allied with Meharry, Tuskegee, and the Drew School in a cooperative affiliation with areas of need in West Africa. We know we are compelled by the legislative fiat of PL 94- 484 to make places in the junior class for US citizens now enrolled in foreign schools, but I will have to report the impact of that to you when we meet again in Washington next summer. Our three-year MD program is a resounding success: still small, as we want it to be, this allows those exceptional students, who ought not be confined to the lock-step of a fouryear curriculum, to finish medical school in three years. We have PhD programs in anatomy, biochemistry, genetics, microbiology, pharmacology, and physiology, and are beginning a Master of Science program in public health. We continue our approved residency programs in 14 clinical specialties and subspecialties for 62 interns and 188 residents; our kidney transplant and heart surgery programs are getting national recognition and our sickle cell, radiotherapy, and cancer programs are international in scope.
JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, VOL. 69, NO. 12, 1977
Present and Future Needs I conclude this presentation by listing for you - our alumni and friends - the general and specific needs on which we should focus now and in future years.
1. More of the capable and stimulating students who can cope with the science and art of medicine. 2. New converts to academic medicine for our faculty: an unparalleled opportunity exists at Howard for an academician to become another Osler, Drew, or Roland Scott. 3. Completion of our physical plant by providing a family practice model offlce, living facilities adjacent to the campus for our medical students, and a research building for our investigators. 4. Sustained scholarship support for our students and fellowships for off-campus study of our young faculty members. 5. Closer relationships with our alumni all over the country. In telling this audience of our dependence on alumni, perhaps I am "preaching to the choir" - but, this support of alumni is crucial. It should include your keeping up with the changes that I have described, cutting down on myths and slander about the quality of the school; your sending to the Dean's Office the latest news about your clinical practice, newspaper clippings or other announcements concerning you, thus enabling us to brag about you; improving your alumni association by insisting on a steady flow of information from the school to you and including an information and ticket booth at the NMA convention; and your continuing to refer outstanding students and faculty members to us. I have urged that the alumni commit themselves to a million dollars of support each year. Do not repeat the myth that, because Howard receives some federal support, it does not need money. Rather, include the College in your plans, to the end that opportunities equal or better than Howard provided to you, will be available to another aspiring physician.
Specific projects which you could underwrite are the equipping of six seminar rooms in our new building, or paying for a chair or chairs in a lecture hall, or sponsoring a faculty fellow-
ship. I wish I were as eloquent as our speaker last night, NAACP Executive Director Hooks, and if I were I would have to ask: "If not now -when? If not you -who?" 899
Howard University College of Medicine Today Marion Mann, MD, Dean Washington, D.C.
I want to spend a few minutes talking about our College of Medicine's current status and its important role in the training of physicians. You already know much about Howard, but it is a constantly growing, changing, dynamic organism and one year is rarely the same as the preceeding year. The medical education world is different from that from which you emerged a few years ago - or many years ago - when you finished your medical education. The demands for health care are different, there is less solo practice than when many of you were graduated; costs have greatly escalated; malpractice costs are horrendous; individual states no longer
Presented at the Howard University Alumni Dinner, 82nd Annual Convention and Scientific Assembly of the National Medical Association, Bonaventure Hotel, Los Angeles, California, August 3, 1977.
898
write licensure examinations; job opportunities of great responsibility at national and local levels are waiting to be filled; there are many unserved areas which need to be served; and there are unanswered questions which cry out to be answered by diligent clinical research. These are the concepts we think about in the College of Medicine as we go about the business of training medical students. As importantly, these and other concepts must be remembered as we plan a strategy for the Howard of the 1980s and 1990s. As the alumni and stewards of medical education at Howard today, we would be shortsighted indeed if we failed to realize that if Howard is to have a strong faculty and effective programs, as we turn into the 21st Century, the foundations must be laid now.
What Is the College's Status Today? During the past year, we went through one of those "once-everyseven-years" accreditation surveys, and
I am delighted to report that we were commended by the accreditation body and given full accreditation for the next seven years. Our student body is a capable, enthusiastic, and involved group of about 450 - an optimum number for our success in providing quality education with the resources at our disposal. Their academic excellence is commendable as attested by 77 percent of our sophomores passing Part I of the National Board Examinations this past summer. Ninety-five percent of our seniors passed Part II the first time around. Our faculty has grown in strength and we are working on recruiting additional faculty in certain key areas. They have a real concern for students; a greater percentage of them now conduct all of their professional activity - teaching and private practice - in our superb new Howard University Hospital which replaced the obsolete Freedmen's structure which many of you remember. Many of them are producing worthwhile research
JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, VOL. 69, NO. 12, 1977
projects. I cannot pay too much tribute to our faculty. We had giants in the past such as Drew, Greene, Payne, J. B. Johnson, Harden, Ross, etc., and we still have Jason, Frank Jones, Joe Johnson, Walter Booker, Moses Young, and Monty Cobb for advice and consultation. But current progress is the product of much planning and dedication on the part of similarly talented faculty members - at the senior professor level and junior faculty level - and they also deserve a tribute. Our budget includes about $10 million in University funds, $1.5 million in student financial aid (mainly from outside sources), $3- 4 million in research, about $4 million in development and training grants, and about $48 million annually for the Howard University Hospital. While discussing budget, I might mention a grant which was disapproved by HEW recently: a request for almost one-half million dollars for implementing our improved curriculum. We were informed last week that the reason for our failure to receive the grant was that the review committee disapproved of our requirement of the National Board examinations, claiming that this would decrease the retention of our students. We maintain that if the National Board requirement is correctly applied and students receive adequate academic support, retention will not be diminished. We can show that 77 percent passed this summer and we anticipate that in September more than 95 percent will have passed. And we can show that since the individual states stopped writing their own examinations, some graduates have been unable to get a license to practice medicine. Such MDs are less able to pass the basic science parts of the National Board examinations or the Federation Licensing Examination (FLEX) after they have been out of school for a year or two than they would have been as sophomores. We feel there is no merit in a policy which involves retention only at the medical school level and which does not ensure retention in clinical practice - that is, licensure. I suspect that those committee members who voted against our grant were too much influenced by those who campaigned against our procedures, or perhaps by
a Washington Post article, written by people who have had no experience in black medical education. I feel that our 1 10 years of experience at Howard make us the world's experts - if there be any experts - and that we deserve support in a special project which suits our needs. And we will go on seeking these funds - from HEW, from foundations or corporations, from friends, and fund-raising events - wherever the money can be found to carry on this highly successful and important project. In the area of capital improvements, three new buildings are under construction: the Cancer Center building will be completed next summer; the Seeley G. Mudd Pre-clinical Building - to which many of you contributed - will be ready in the late fall of 1978; and an addition to the library will be completed at about the same time. We have healthy affiliations with other institutions: D.C. General Hospital is absolutely crucial in our total program. We accept into our junior class up to five students who have completed the basic sciences at the CCNY program. We have agreed to accept up to seven students who will complete the basic sciences in the new Morehouse program. We are allied with Meharry, Tuskegee, and the Drew School in a cooperative affiliation with areas of need in West Africa. We know we are compelled by the legislative fiat of PL 94- 484 to make places in the junior class for US citizens now enrolled in foreign schools, but I will have to report the impact of that to you when we meet again in Washington next summer. Our three-year MD program is a resounding success: still small, as we want it to be, this allows those exceptional students, who ought not be confined to the lock-step of a fouryear curriculum, to finish medical school in three years. We have PhD programs in anatomy, biochemistry, genetics, microbiology, pharmacology, and physiology, and are beginning a Master of Science program in public health. We continue our approved residency programs in 14 clinical specialties and subspecialties for 62 interns and 188 residents; our kidney transplant and heart surgery programs are getting national recognition and our sickle cell, radiotherapy, and cancer programs are international in scope.
JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL MEDICAL ASSOCIATION, VOL. 69, NO. 12, 1977
Present and Future Needs I conclude this presentation by listing for you - our alumni and friends - the general and specific needs on which we should focus now and in future years.
1. More of the capable and stimulating students who can cope with the science and art of medicine. 2. New converts to academic medicine for our faculty: an unparalleled opportunity exists at Howard for an academician to become another Osler, Drew, or Roland Scott. 3. Completion of our physical plant by providing a family practice model offlce, living facilities adjacent to the campus for our medical students, and a research building for our investigators. 4. Sustained scholarship support for our students and fellowships for off-campus study of our young faculty members. 5. Closer relationships with our alumni all over the country. In telling this audience of our dependence on alumni, perhaps I am "preaching to the choir" - but, this support of alumni is crucial. It should include your keeping up with the changes that I have described, cutting down on myths and slander about the quality of the school; your sending to the Dean's Office the latest news about your clinical practice, newspaper clippings or other announcements concerning you, thus enabling us to brag about you; improving your alumni association by insisting on a steady flow of information from the school to you and including an information and ticket booth at the NMA convention; and your continuing to refer outstanding students and faculty members to us. I have urged that the alumni commit themselves to a million dollars of support each year. Do not repeat the myth that, because Howard receives some federal support, it does not need money. Rather, include the College in your plans, to the end that opportunities equal or better than Howard provided to you, will be available to another aspiring physician.
Specific projects which you could underwrite are the equipping of six seminar rooms in our new building, or paying for a chair or chairs in a lecture hall, or sponsoring a faculty fellow-
ship. I wish I were as eloquent as our speaker last night, NAACP Executive Director Hooks, and if I were I would have to ask: "If not now -when? If not you -who?" 899
