Growing a medical center

I’m in the newest energy plant on the campus of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock. This normally wouldn’t be considered a sexy story for a newspaper columnist, but I’m intrigued.

In recent years, UAMS has reduced its carbon footprint by 32 percent as it tries to become the most energy-efficient academic medical center in the country.

There’s enough fuel at this plant to power the whole campus for at least 48 hours in the event the electric grid fails. I hear how emergency power can be provided within 10 seconds so as not to disrupt medical procedures that might be taking place. I visit the control room at what’s known as the east plant (there’s also a west plant) and see the many monitors on the wall.

The $54 million facility, which opened in 2021, is part of a $150 million energy project that has attracted national attention.

A bond issue approved by the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees funded the work. The initiative is estimated to result in $4.8 million in annual savings. The project upgraded building control systems across the campus, interior lighting, exterior lighting and mechanical systems. There are even new occupancy sensors for lighting in 37 elevators.

Electrical systems in some buildings were original to their 1950s and 1960s construction. Now there’s energy-efficient LED lighting. The size of this project is another example of the massive economic engine that UAMS has become. It has come a long way since the Arkansas Industrial University Medical Department was incorporated in September 1879.

“To some extent, the history of UAMS is the history of medicine in Arkansas,” Jerry Puryear writes for the Central Arkansas Library System’s Encyclopedia of Arkansas.

“The Arkansas State Medical Association, formed in 1870, pressed the Legislature to allow the legal dissection of cadavers, a major milestone in medical research and education. After the Legislature’s approval in 1873, the state’s first dissection took place in the fall of 1874 at Little Rock Barracks in what’s now MacArthur Park.

“During the next few years, the doctors of the College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Pulaski County Medical Society collaborated to found a medical college. These two groups of physicians had been at odds over a seemingly insignificant but disruptive personal dispute in 1874. But the passing years and the prospect of a medical college brought them together into the larger state medical society in 1879.”

There was a move to make the medical school part of St. Johns’ College, an institution created by Arkansas Freemasons in Little Rock. The college began classes in October 1859 and existed until 1882. The medical school instead wound up under the umbrella of what’s now the University of Arkansas.

“The new Medical Department was an independent part of the university,” Puryear writes. “Philo Hooper, head of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, was to choose the faculty, staff and curriculum. … The Medical Department was incorporated with capital of $5,000 provided by eight investors, enough to buy the Sperindio Hotel at 113 West Second St. That fall the department accepted 22 students. Much of their education came in the classroom, but they gained practical exposure to medicine by working in the dispensary at Fones Brothers Hardware next door.”

The eight founding doctors were Hooper, Edwin Bentley, Augustus Breysacher, James Dibrell, Roscoe Jennings, John McAlmont, James Southall and Claiborne Watkins.

The Sperindio building, a narrow three-story structure, served as the college’s home for 11 years. There were small classrooms and a lecture room on the first floor. The second floor housed an operating room, anesthetizing and recovery rooms, and offices for the dean and registrar. At the time the building was sold in 1890, there were 80 medical students enrolled. A new building on Sherman Street housed a lecture room and a number of classrooms. A free clinic for indigent patients was on the first floor.

“In 1911, the state merged the Medical Department with a competing Little Rock medical school, the College of Physicians and Surgeons,” Puryear writes. “This school, founded in 1906, was not be be confused with the original College of Physicians and Surgeons, which was simply an association of physicians. This was an actual medical school.”

The UA would now have a more direct role in overseeing the Medical Department, which finally would receive state appropriations. With a new state Capitol, space in the Old State House was assigned to the Medical Department by the Legislature. The former capitol building was used by first and second-year students. The building on Sherman Street was used by third and fourth-year students.

In 1932, the Legislature appropriated $275,000 to build a more modern facility, but bonds were never sold. Powerful U.S. Sen. Joe T. Robinson stepped in at the federal level.

“Despite state funding, the Medical Department foundered for years,” Puryear writes. “Its facilities were notoriously poor. Arkansas wasn’t a rich state. Approving taxes for any purpose was difficult, and securing appropriations from the state was a never-ending struggle. Moreover, in the early 20th century, scientific inquiry was a low priority for many Arkansans.

“While the medical school was renamed in 1918, help didn’t come until the poverty of the Great Depression sparked President Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration. The administration freed $500,000 to build a facility across from MacArthur Park. That building now houses the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s Bowen School of Law.”

Classes began in the building, which could accommodate 300 students, in 1935. It later was connected with City Hospital. Enrollment increased from 298 in 1936 to a high of 325 students before accreditation difficulties began taking their toll. In 1939, the Legislature approved $125,000 for the school and added $175,000 to lease City Hospital and take on its charity cases. City Hospital had a 200-bed capacity.

The facility was considered obsolete by the late 1940s. Gov. Sid McMath took office in 1949 and led efforts to pass a cigarette tax to fund a new University Hospital and medical school building. The tax passed and a groundbreaking ceremony was held in October 1951. The hospital on West Markham Street cost $9 million. It had a capacity of 450 beds but opened with 236 due to funding shortages for maintenance and operations.

In 1956, clinical faculty and students moved to the Markham campus. Nursing faculty and basic medical scientists moved the next year. A student dormitory that had 315 single-student rooms and 95 quarters for married students was built. In 1959, Col. T.H. Barton of El Dorado provided seed money for a faculty research building that was completed in 1961.

According to the UAMS website: “The 1960s were years of growth. One of the most significant areas of growth was class size. Arkansas needed more physicians, and the College of Medicine set into motion a program to handle the shortage. This was also a time that departments and research grew exponentially. The Child Study Center was built in 1969, an additional education building was added in 1978 and the Ambulatory Care Center was built in 1981.

“UAMS and the College of Medicine saw remarkable changes during the 1980s and 1990s. The College of Medicine saw the completion of the Family Medical Center, the Magnetic Resonance Imaging Center, the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute, an outpatient surgery building, a biomedical research building, the Harvey and Bernice Jones Eye Institute, BioVentures, a gamma knife center, the Myeloma Institute for Research & Therapy, the Donald W. Reynolds Center on Aging, the Jackson T. Stephens Spine & Neurosciences Institute and an Alzheimer’s’s disease center.”

The old campus dormitory was imploded in 2006 to make way for expansion. A modern residence hall was finished that year.