UI trustees want more information on potential med school at Urbana

URBANA Two competing proposals to bridge engineering and medicine at the University of Illinois were reviewed by a committee of UI trustees Tuesday, and one thing was clear: they want more information.

Members of the board's University Healthcare System Committee agreed that President Bob Easter should explore the ramifications of creating a separate medical school at the Urbana campus, as well as a counterproposal from the existing College of Medicine at the UI Chicago, and return to the full board in March with a recommendation on how to proceed. A resolution to that effect will be placed on the board's Nov. 13 agenda.

"There are some real questions about what is the best way forward," Easter told committee members Monday. "I think we need to come to grips with the idea."

Chancellor Phyllis Wise, speaking remotely from Taiwan, presented the 10-year financial plan for the proposed Urbana-based college of medicine, which calls for no state funding, at least $1.4 million from the campus, more than $100 million from Carle Health System and $135 million from donors over 10 years. The college, to open in 2017, would fuse medical training with engineering, computer science and technology to train physician-scientists who could treat patients and develop medical advances.

Home to the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, a top-ranked College of Engineering and "unmatched" capabilities in the sciences, Wise said, the Urbana campus is in a position to take on one of society's biggest challenges: providing better health care at lower cost through technologies like remote monitoring or new imaging techniques.

"We have an opportunity to develop a new paradigm from the ground up," she told the committee.

Administrators at the UIC College of Medicine have developed their own plan calling for an Urbana-based Translational BioEngineering Institute for research and economic development, in partnership with the College of Engineering. The plan would also integrate engineering and technology into the college's medical training for all 1,300 medical students on four campuses; redefine the role of the Urbana regional medical campus as a "regional Center of Excellence" and expand M.D.-Ph.D. programs; and forge new clinical partnerships with Carle and other hospitals.

UIC College of Medicine Dean Dmitri Azar said working within the existing college would be more efficient and have the same payoff as the Urbana proposal, without investing $235 million for a relatively small number of students. He estimated start-up costs for the Chicago proposal at about $70 million over five years and said the money would come from the college, health partners and donors. He characterized it as a "win-win alternative" for the two campuses.

Urbana officials say their start-up costs would total $37.4 million over first three years, with projected financial support of $44.8 million from tuition income, Carle's support, research grants, clinical income and donors. They note that Carle's $100 million-plus contribution is good only for a separate Urbana medical school.

Wise said discussions with other universities across the country showed that it's extremely difficult to retrofit a large medical school with a new engineering-based curriculum; the better option is to do it from the ground up.

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UI trustees want more information on potential med school at Urbana