MSU's Medical Colleges Leverage Local Capacity to Meet Statewide Needs
According to a 2011 report from the Michigan Health and Hospital Association, the health care industry is Michigan's largest private-sector employer. The industry directly employs more than half a million Michigan residents—who earn more than $30 billion in wages, salaries, and benefits, and pay $6.6 billion in federal, state and local taxes—and supports countless local suppliers and other businesses as well. And MSU's medical colleges are expanding their local capacities to meet growing statewide needs.
College of Human Medicine
Secchia Center — MSU College of Human Medicine in Grand Rapids
MSU's College of Human Medicine has a significant impact on Michigan's population, with physicians and medical students positioned in seven communities throughout the state and reaching some of Michigan's most underserved and vulnerable residents.
"The impact of this unique collaboration—from health care delivery to new research endeavors to economic stimulus—will be felt both in Grand Rapids and across the state."
Lou Anna K. Simon
With the September 2010 opening of the Secchia Center, the $90 million headquarters for the college in Grand Rapids, MSU began a new era of medical education. "The impact of this unique collaboration—from health care delivery to new research endeavors to economic stimulus—will be felt both in Grand Rapids and across the state," said MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon. "MSU and the College of Human Medicine believe in the value of teaching medicine where it is needed and practiced—in the community." The new building was financed entirely without public funding.
The Secchia Center is only part of the College of Human Medicine's growing footprint in communities across the state. New regional campuses have been opened in Traverse City and Midland, administrators are working in Flint to develop a research and education model built specifically around that region's needs, and early admission programs have been signed with several colleges and universities across the state. In addition to its partners in Grand Rapids— Spectrum Health, Van Andel Institute, Saint Mary's Health Care, Grand Valley State University, Grand Action, and The Right Place—the college also has hospital partners in Kalamazoo, Lansing, Midland, Traverse City, and the Upper Peninsula.
The College of Human Medicine attracted more than $31 million in external research funds during 2010, and employs more than 300 full-time faculty members and many support staff.
College of Osteopathic Medicine
Opening of MSU College of Osteopathic Medicine/Macomb University Center
In partnership with Macomb University Center and the Detroit Medical Center, MSU's College of Osteopathic Medicine (COM) recently expanded its local capacity for communitybased health care, medical education, and research to these two Southeast Michigan sites. Overall, COM has students in more than 40 community hospitals across the state.
COM is also partnering with Detroit Public Schools to open a new high school, based at the Medical Center, which will focus on a college-prep science and medical curriculum. The Benjamin Carson School of Science and Medicine will open to incoming freshmen in fall 2011.
More than two-thirds of MSU-COM's 3,933 living alumni practice in Michigan, and 48 percent of those practitioners are in Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties.
College of Nursing
Dean Carpenter, College of Nursing alumnus, is a nurse practitioner at the Tumaini Center homeless shelter in Detroit.
MSU's College of Nursing is one of 26 schools nationwide to receive federal funds to expand its primary care nurse practitioner program.
The five-year, $1.42 million grant from the Department of Health and Human Services' Health Resources and Services Administration, announced in October 2010, is a part of the Advanced Nursing Education Expansion program. That program aims to increase the number of nurses with advanced degrees who provide health care services similar to those of a physician.
Student recipients are awarded a $22,000 annual stipend for up to two years to help reduce their financial burden so they can enroll in the program full time. In turn, graduation is accelerated, increasing the number of nurse practitioners in the Michigan work force. The first cohort of five recipients, all members of the class of 2012, was announced in February 2011.
Clinical placement of MSU nurse practitioner students takes place in more than 300 urban and rural settings throughout Michigan. The College of Nursing retains a majority of nurse practitioner graduates in Michigan, including underserved areas of the state.
