Following passage of two previously introduced and debated resolutions at the Academic Council's general body meeting Thursday afternoon, members in attendance heard a presentation on "The Evolution of the Academic Health System" by Ralph Snyderman, chancellor for health affairs and dean of the medical school.
The council lent its support to the establishment of a "Master of Engineering Management" program, voting for it unanimously and without debate (see related story at right). The program will combine courses from the Fuqua School of Business and the School of Engineering to prepare engineers for positions in business administration.
Prior to the general body meeting, the council's executive committee amended the second resolution-which calls for the merger of the pharmacology and molecular cancer biology departments-at the behest of Lewis Siegel, dean of the graduate school, and the graduate faculty's executive committee. The amendment stipulates that the doctoral program in molecular cancer biology "will be administered as an interdepartmental University program," while the degree in pharmacology will be administered through the new department of pharmacology and cancer biology.
James Rolleston, chair of the Germanic languages and literature department, asked Gordon Hammes, vice chancellor for academic affairs of the Medical Center and the merger proposal's presenter, whether the proposal's architects had addressed concerns that the merger would stimulate growth in cancer biology at the cost of stasis in pharmacology.
"We recognize the concerns of [the committee]," Hammes said. "It is our intent to raise the recruitment for both departments, but our first priority is cancer biology." The department of molecular cancer biology, he continued, lost half of its faculty members in the last year, leaving it with only four.
After the brief exchange, the council passed the amended resolution with no further discussion.
With the legislative business completed, the council moved on to Snyderman's presentation, which addressed the evolution of the Medical Center health care system since 1992.
Snyderman introduced his speech by tracing the evolution of the patient-physician relationship during the last four decades, explaining that it began as with direct contact and has developed into today's complicated bureaucracy of employers, insurance companies and provider organizations.
"There has been a turning on its head of the health care system in the last five years," he said, adding that the advent of commercial systems, which are based on Health Maintenance Organizations and managed care, forced academic health centers to compete for survival even as they attempted to perform their characteristic duties, including research, education, specialty care and charity health care.
"For a viable health care system," Snyderman said, "we need both [the academic and commercial] models,"
As a result, he continued, the Medical Center has expanded its role in primary and ancillary care and has established managed care and community health entities. It has also begun the formation of a regional health care network of hospitals and providers across North Carolina and southern Virginia.
After the presentation, Ken Knoerr, a professor at the Nicholas School of the Environment, said that many of his colleagues at the medical school feel alienated by the changes taking place. "The people on whom the reputation of the Medical Center is built don't feel they've had very much input on the changes being made," he said. "They find they're spending more time on paperwork" and less time with patients.
Snyderman conceded that doctors at the medical center "are working harder to generate less revenue than ever before," but suggested the phenomenon was related more to national trends than specific changes at the medical school. "The stability of the institution is far greater now than it was two to three years ago," he said, "and far greater than that of any other academic health center."
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.