Medical School Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Legislators Hear Several Reports On State’s Educational Systems

Sunday’s interim legislative meetings included several updates on the state’s schools and educational programs.

Cynthia Persily, vice chancellor for health sciences with the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission presented the Health Sciences and Rural Health Report Card.

Persily told the Legislative Oversight Committee on Educational Accountability that the state’s three state funded medical schools enroll more medical students per capita than any other state in the country, but most of them don’t stay in state

Despite the high enrollment, Persily says only 1 in 5 medical school graduates educated in the state end up practicing here due to a high debt load and lower reimbursement rates and salaries for physicians compared to other states.

“What we’ve seen is a steady decline in the number of students choosing to practice in West Virginia,” she said. “But I’m pleased to say that we at least leveled off from last year at 20 percent of our graduates from the classes of 2012 to 2017, who are practicing in West Virginia. We hope to start to see these rates incline.”

Persily says doctors are more likely to practice close to where they completed their residency, and state officials are trying to improve retention of medical school graduates with improved incentives.

Charter School Report

Later in the meeting, State Deputy Superintendent Michele Blatt presented a report on the state’s new public charter schools.

Established in 2021 by House Bill 2012, West Virginia’s first four charter schools opened this past fall.

Blatt says the Department of Education has worked to support the new schools, which all constitute their own local education agency.

“So if they want to work with a local county to provide transportation or child nutrition, then they have to pay for those services to the county because they’re separate from that,” Blatt said. “But we’ve worked through Jefferson County and Mon county to make sure that everything is working together the way that it should.”

There are currently brick and mortar charter schools in Morgantown and Kearneysville, as well as two virtual charter schools, with a third brick and mortar charter set to open next fall.

Blatt also presented brief reports on the regulations for the education of students with exceptionalities, the Feed to Achieve program and class sizes.

West Virginia School Of Osteopathic Medicine Celebrates 50 Year Anniversary

The West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine recently celebrated its 50 year anniversary.

The West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine (WVSOM), was founded in 1972 and celebrated its anniversary at the Frederick Building in Huntington on Wednesday

“We’re now the largest med school in this state with 800 plus students,” president of the school, James Nemitz, said in a speech.

Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine, or D.O.s, are trained in the same services as other doctors, but take a more holistic approach to a patient’s wellness.

The WVSOM has a main campus in Lewisburg, and campuses in Huntington, Charleston, Martinsburg, Clarksburg, Wheeling, and Parkersburg.

So students have access to hands-on experience, the school has partnerships with 59 clinics and hospitals across the state for their required clinical rotations.

“We expose our students to the entire state; we expose them to rural medicine,” Nemitz said. “A significant number of them are saying, ‘this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.’”

Students with the WVSOM spend their first two years at the campus in Lewisburg. Starting their third year, the students disperse out into the rest of the state for their clinical work during their third and fourth years.

Third year student Priyanka Pandey hails from Columbus, Ohio. She is doing her first clinical rotation in Huntington, working in inpatient psychiatric care.

“A lot of the people that are there, their psychosis is due to drug addiction over like multiple years,” Pandey said. “It’s kind of really nice to see that there’s so many different social services that are in place to make sure that these people are either with family or they’re in a group home, or they never just let them out onto the streets. That’s kind of why I wanted to be a D.O. in the first place.”

One of the major issues facing medical schools is the limited number of residencies available for graduates. The school reports that 99 percent of their graduates were able to match into a residency program this year.

“If you have a person go into a residency, more than likely when they’re finished with their residency, at least for their first job, they will stay within 50 miles,” Nemitz said. “So one of the key things of keeping doc’s in the state is growing residency and fellowship programs.”

State Program Makes Med School Admissions Easier For Students By Waiving MCAT Test

A new program from West Virginia Wesleyan College and the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine called “Go D.O.” aims to inspire more students to become doctors and make medical school more accessible.

“All things we do in admissions at West Virginia Wesleyan, we try to break down barriers,” said John Waltz, vice president for enrollment management at West Virginia Wesleyan.

Wesleyan, a private, nonprofit libreral arts college in Buchannon, West Virginia, and the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine, a public graduate institution in Lewisburg, announced a new collaboration last month, but the program has been in development for three years.

Waltz said the program makes medical school more accessible by waiving the Medical College Admission Test, or MCAT, which is a test required by almost all U.S. medical schools to determine eligibility into a medical program, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.

Wesleyan and the osteopathic school will instead look at a student’s academic achievements both in high school and while pursuing their undergraduate degree at Wesleyan.

“The student is able to come and do their undergraduate work knowing that as long as they meet the prerequisites along the way, that they are able to matriculate directly into medical school,” Waltz said. “That high level of success and that preparedness is really what was at the heart of what drove this partnership.”

High school seniors have until Dec. 1 to get priority consideration for the first group of this new program, but the schools will be accepting applications on a rolling basis after that. Each year, 10 students will be selected for the program.

Waltz said the program will be competitive.

An eligible high school senior must have at least a 3.75 GPA and earn at least a 30 on the ACT or a 1390 on the SAT. Students can gain entry into the West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine after completion of program requirements and after a successful interview with the osteopathic school.

“Something we’re very, very interested in is students being able to study here, not only do their undergraduate, but their graduate work in the state of West Virginia,” Waltz said. “And to be able to contribute to our great state, hopefully in careers and in service, for years and years to come. That sustainability is really what’s most important to us.”

Waltz said through high school outreach, they’ve identified more than 860 eligible West Virginia high school seniors. Out-of-state students can also apply.

The West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine is one of West Virginia’s three medical schools.

Marshall University and West Virginia University also offer similar pathways for high school and undergraduate students interested in pursuing medical school. However, only Marshall and the School of Osteopathic Medicine school have opportunities that waive the MCAT.

A WVU spokesperson told West Virginia Public Broadcasting that the MCAT is not waived in the university’s program, because “it is an important part of our holistic review process.”

WVU Launches Fast-Track Medical School Program

The West Virginia University School of Medicine has launched a new accelerated program for medical students.

In a press release, WVU said the Mountaineer Accelerated Track to Enter Residency program will shave a semester off of the four-year medical degree program. This move, they said, is to give students an option to graduate with less debt and try and get medical professionals into patient care sooner to meet the state’s health needs.

According to the Bureau of Health Workforce, Health Resources and Services Administration, only 45 percent of West Virginians have adequate access to a primary care health professional.

The program will be available to students starting medical school in August.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Marshall Health, Charleston Area Medical Center and WVU Medicine.

WVU Medical School cooking up lessons in nutrition

Students at the West Virginia University School of Medicine Martinsburg, W.Va., campus are getting a side dish of cooking lessons along with their regular medical training.

The WVU Medical School’s Eastern Division is trying to fill a void in doctor education through a new class called Med Chef.

The 14 students who are currently earning degrees in the Eastern Panhandle are taking the class. Dr. Rosemarie Cannarella Lorenzetti, associate dean for student services, says medical students have not traditionally learned about nutrition

“In bio chemistry in their second year they’re taught a little bit about how glucose is taken by the cell and how the muscles utilize glucose or stored sugars like glycogen, those kinds of things,” Lorenzetti said. “But when you ask a typical third year student what kind of diet advice they give to the patient they say ‘oh we’re not supposed to do that that’s supposed to come from dieticians.’”

“And certainly in my over 30 years of practice as a family doctor patients ask me all the time for advice about eating,” she added.

Dr. Mark Cucuzzella, family medicine professor, said the goal is to arm future doctors with information they can pass along to patients when necessary.

“I don’t see in a 15 minute clinic a doctor’s going to break out a fry pan and start chopping vegetables, but what we’d like to do is connect the dots,” Cucuzzella said.

According to Cucuzzella those dots can include information about nutrition, what foods are healthy, or even what cooking classes are available in the community. He said eating right is the first step to maintaining a healthy weight, and those who are not overweight can often avoid diseases like diabetes or heart attacks.

“We have all this awesome new technology to take care of all these really bad things people are getting now,” Cucuzzella said. “But I think part of our mission is let’s not have to send people for all of these things too and not have to send them for the cardiac bypass and stents, let’s prevent it,”

The students and their professors took a cooking class at Blue Ridge Community and Technical College where they learned how to make dishes like California rolls and chocolate brownies with healthier ingredients. Lorenzetti said another lesson focused on how to ask about a patient’s eating habits in a nonjudgmental way.

“One time we took the whole afternoon and we were just working with the students on how do you take a nutrition history from a patient?,” she said. “I challenge all you to think about the last time you went for a checkup for the doctor and they asked what do you eat?”

Students Rob Ciancaglini from Annapolis, Md., and Wayde Gilmore from Elkins, W.Va., said the information they’re learning will help them be better doctors.

“You can’t have somebody walk into your office and you explain to them 10 recipes,” Ciancaglini said. “There’s no time for that in a clinic setting.”

But Ciancaglini said doctors can help patients make good decisions.

“So something like telling them to stay on the perimeter of the grocery store where all the fresher foods and ingredients are. If you give them simple rules like that then generally you’re going to kind of just eat healthier anyway,” he said.

“I think there are a lot of misconceptions about nutrition that are out there so I think as a future doctor I think it’s very important to learn how to be healthy, how to eat healthy, what good nutrition actually means,” Gilmore said.

“In the future when I’m in my clinic I want to be able to know the right types of things to tell my patients to help them lead healthier lives and to eat healthier because nutrition has an absolutely massive impact on the wellbeing of your patients,” Gilmore said.

Accrediting body lifts probation for Marshall Medical School

In June 2011 Marshall University’s Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine was recommended for probation by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education. After making many necessary changes the school had its probation lifted late last week.

The LCME’s complaints were in the areas of a lack of diversity for students and faculty; lower-than-average scholarship support and higher than average student debt; limited programs to promote student wellbeing, limited advising, lack of a financial aid and debt management program and curricular issues. Dr. Joseph Shapiro was hired in the spring of 2012 as the new Dean with the mission of bringing the school out of probation. Shapiro said each of the issues was addressed.

“We need to continue to build things and we need to continue to get better and better. I’m very happy with our trajectory and I’m very happy that we’re moving in the right direction,” Shapiro said.

In the areas of diversity, a new diversity director was hired, new programs have been put in place to help students find scholarships and get financial help and research has become a much more important issue at the medical school than ever before. Shapiro said the probation could turn out to be a good thing.

“Was it a blessing in disguise to be on probation? Well maybe, it certainly got people focused and people were certainly receptive to the message I brought, but we’re doing the things we should be doing now and I still find it an incredible challenge and opportunity,” Shapiro said.

"Was it a blessing in disguise to be on probation? Well maybe, it certainly got people focused," Shapiro said.

Shapiro said Marshall’s medical school can’t compare to top medical research institutions like Harvard, Yale or Penn. Instead, the school must focus on what it does well.

“If we look at numbers like how many of our students are do practice in West Virginia and how many of them ultimately do primary care practices, our numbers are pretty good and how well we’re training them and how good they are as doctors is again a hard number to get too, but those are the numbers that are kind of interesting,” Shapiro said.

The Dean said the probation period definitely hurt the recruiting the school was able to do during the two year period. But the hope is with the probation lifted, things will begin to look up.

“It certainly hurt enrollment and hurt recruitment, the year before I came on, although we traditionally recruit very well in West Virginia, we were really challenged because of probation,” Shapiro said. “Last year we recruited better for medical school, I think because we told students all the things that we were doing.”

Shapiro said although the probation has been lifted Marshall will work to continue to improve on the areas that the Liaison Committee on Medical Education questioned.