34 replies to this topic

[butttrumpet]

http://www.arkansasb...49.54928.120794

Another 500k.

[Mith242]

Just to mention some of the info of the link article.  The satellite campus is now halfway to it's goal of $3 Mil.   The campus should be open for the fall semester of 2009.  The campus will enroll about 80 to 100 medical students and about 60 pharmacy students per year.

[Mith242]

Another big step was taken today.  Apparently the Waltons donated $300K.  Sounds like they're getting pretty close to having all the funds lined up.

[butttrumpet]

Great to hear.  Having another 100 graduate students in Fayetteville is going to be a good thing.  Plus our standard of healthcare in NWA will only get better.  I have thought from time to time that the parking area across College Avenue would make a nice spot for some "on campus" housing for the students.  There are really good views of downtown, the Ozarks and Old Main from up on that hill (coming down North street) as well.

[Mith242]

butttrumpet, on Nov 17 2008, 06:15 PM, said:

Great to hear.  Having another 100 graduate students in Fayetteville is going to be a good thing.  Plus our standard of healthcare in NWA will only get better.  I have thought from time to time that the parking area across College Avenue would make a nice spot for some "on campus" housing for the students.  There are really good views of downtown, the Ozarks and Old Main from up on that hill (coming down North street) as well.

Yeah the parking area does have potential.  I've taken pictures from the hillside just east of it.  If you had a multistory building you could get some really nice views.

[butttrumpet]

Funding goal exceeded!

http://www.nwaonline...12008azuams.txt

[butttrumpet]

I noticed a new temporary sign up on the building a couple of weeks ago announcing UAMS Northwest.  This is exciting.  I can't wait to see the new campus buzzing with activity.  I really think this is going to be a huge success and look for them to expand the program within a few years.

[Mith242]

butttrumpet, on Jan 14 2009, 12:54 PM, said:

I noticed a new temporary sign up on the building a couple of weeks ago announcing UAMS Northwest.  This is exciting.  I can't wait to see the new campus buzzing with activity.  I really think this is going to be a huge success and look for them to expand the program within a few years.

I guess I haven't seen it yet.  Yeah I'm pretty excited about it as well.  Sounds like Jordan is really wanting to push for growth in the health field industry to coincide with the satellite UAMS campus.  I think it's a great thing for Fayetteville and NWA.

[Mith242]

Even with their funding goals met, they are still getting more funds.  The Walmart Foundation donated $1 Mil.  Sounds like it will help get phase one going with renovating the first floor.  Then they'll be able to start focusing on phase two.

http://www.nwanews.c...dg/News/262928/

[Mith242]

It's a pretty small group, but the UAMS satellite campus announced their first group of students.  It may be a small group but still nice to see things progressing.

[thewizard16]

Time to dust off this thread a little.

Apparently renovations are ongoing at the UAMS Northwest campus beyond the Phase I renovations they completed earlier. Additional classrooms, teaching labs, and distance learning facilities (which they're calling Phase II) are supposed to be complete by this fall, when a group of third year pharmacy students will move up to the campus. Medicine will also be sending the largest group of third year medical students up there this year (14), which they'll send this year and next, and that group is supposed to increase again in 2013 if the rumor mill is accurate.

2011 will also see the addition of some new(exact number for Fayetteville to be released, 30 positions are being added at four sites over six years in the state) primary care resident physicians at the UAMS NW AHEC/UAMS NW. This is significant for healthcare in Arkansas since we have a serious primary care shortage and new residency positions are difficult to obtain, but it's also significant since it shows UAMS placing some focus on adding residencies in NWA.

[Mith242]

thewizard16, on 15 January 2011 - 03:33 AM, said:

Time to dust off this thread a little.

Apparently renovations are ongoing at the UAMS Northwest campus beyond the Phase I renovations they completed earlier. Additional classrooms, teaching labs, and distance learning facilities (which they're calling Phase II) are supposed to be complete by this fall, when a group of third year pharmacy students will move up to the campus. Medicine will also be sending the largest group of third year medical students up there this year (14), which they'll send this year and next, and that group is supposed to increase again in 2013 if the rumor mill is accurate.

2011 will also see the addition of some new(exact number for Fayetteville to be released, 30 positions are being added at four sites over six years in the state) primary care resident physicians at the UAMS NW AHEC/UAMS NW. This is significant for healthcare in Arkansas since we have a serious primary care shortage and new residency positions are difficult to obtain, but it's also significant since it shows UAMS placing some focus on adding residencies in NWA.

Thanks for the update.  I've been really looking forward to seeing the NWA UAMS campus coming along.  I've wondered if UAMS is going to put much emphasis on the NWA campus or not.

[thewizard16]

Mith242, on 15 January 2011 - 10:08 AM, said:

Thanks for the update.  I've been really looking forward to seeing the NWA UAMS campus coming along.  I've wondered if UAMS is going to put much emphasis on the NWA campus or not.

They are. Money is always the issue of course, but the NWA expansion was the only way for UAMS to increase its College of Medicine enrollment (their top priority) and it made it much easier to increase pharmacy and nursing enrollments too. Health related professions will see an increase I'm sure as that campus grows, but I don't know as much about their plans for that. UAMS was features in a NY Times article a while back (which I thought we linked on here somewhere) about being one of only a few medical schools actually working to expand their enrollment and promote primary care fields to help alleviate the shortage of primary care doctors, and the NW campus was mentioned as their tool for doing that. They're essentially maxed out in Little Rock when it comes to clerkships, so it wasn't possible to increase enrollment for the first two years until they had clerkships elsewhere that they could put students in for the last two years. Increasing residency positions (very difficult) is the next big thing they're pushing for so that more physicians can stay in AR to do their residency and hopefully increase the number of physicians interested in practicing in AR longer term.

I'd really like to see what their master plan for the NWA campus is (if they've developed an official one yet), though. They have some space there and that building isn't going to fulfill all their needs long term, so it'd be really nice to see some UAMS level construction happen at that location- it could do wonders for that section of college if they increase their footprint, building density, and employment in the next several years.

[Mith242]

thewizard16, on 15 January 2011 - 03:43 PM, said:

They are. Money is always the issue of course, but the NWA expansion was the only way for UAMS to increase its College of Medicine enrollment (their top priority) and it made it much easier to increase pharmacy and nursing enrollments too. Health related professions will see an increase I'm sure as that campus grows, but I don't know as much about their plans for that. UAMS was features in a NY Times article a while back (which I thought we linked on here somewhere) about being one of only a few medical schools actually working to expand their enrollment and promote primary care fields to help alleviate the shortage of primary care doctors, and the NW campus was mentioned as their tool for doing that. They're essentially maxed out in Little Rock when it comes to clerkships, so it wasn't possible to increase enrollment for the first two years until they had clerkships elsewhere that they could put students in for the last two years. Increasing residency positions (very difficult) is the next big thing they're pushing for so that more physicians can stay in AR to do their residency and hopefully increase the number of physicians interested in practicing in AR longer term.

I'd really like to see what their master plan for the NWA campus is (if they've developed an official one yet), though. They have some space there and that building isn't going to fulfill all their needs long term, so it'd be really nice to see some UAMS level construction happen at that location- it could do wonders for that section of college if they increase their footprint, building density, and employment in the next several years.

I guess I've just wondered how dedicated they were to an NWA UAMS campus.  Years before they put one up here there had been talk of NWA wanting something up here.  But I always had the impression that most people in the state didn't think Arkansas was big enough.  There had been rumors of someone else possibly trying to getting something started not associated with UAMS.  So I had always wondered if UAMS made a move more in to help keep someone else from establishing a rival campus.  But I can't say if there was really a serious possibility of a rival campus getting started or if it was just talk.  I suppose if Walton money was involved you couldn't rule out the possibility.  I believe the Walton Foundation made a big donation that helped the NWA UAMS get started in the first place.

[thewizard16]

Mith242, on 15 January 2011 - 04:02 PM, said:

I guess I've just wondered how dedicated they were to an NWA UAMS campus.  Years before they put one up here there had been talk of NWA wanting something up here.  But I always had the impression that most people in the state didn't think Arkansas was big enough.  There had been rumors of someone else possibly trying to getting something started not associated with UAMS.  So I had always wondered if UAMS made a move more in to help keep someone else from establishing a rival campus.  But I can't say if there was really a serious possibility of a rival campus getting started or if it was just talk.  I suppose if Walton money was involved you couldn't rule out the possibility.  I believe the Walton Foundation made a big donation that helped the NWA UAMS get started in the first place.

They didn't want to expand too early due to funding, limited residencies, somewhat dated medical facilities in NWA until recently, etc. Arkansas is a small state and does train more medical professionals than some similar sized states, but UAMS also has a much stronger reputation, research funding, and greater out of state draw than any other medical school in a similar sized state I know of, which makes them a bit better positioned to expand enrollment than most places. Even with their expansion, they've set new records in application numbers for the past two years, so it's not like expanding is requiring them to scrape the barrel for applicants. At any rate, they finally had a facility suitable for their purposes (and I think the connection to the VA was really important to them), felt they could raise the funds, and the healthcare facilities in NWA had built new, expanded, modern hospitals suitable for expanding clerkships and training residents, so the timing was right.

As far as another (private, of course) medical school moving in- that may be true but it had never gotten to a very serious planning stage, just expressed interest. I do feel it's much better for NWA to have a regional campus for the state's large research medical school than a branch of a private osteopathic med school with no real research facilities or connection to other training programs like pharmacy, nursing, etc. though, so things probably worked out in the best long-term interests of the region. It'll be a long time before Arkansas is large enough to support a full fledged second medical school, but I imagine when the time comes Little Rock or NWA would be at the top of the list of any future medical school's location list.