UH’s med school plan faces first ‘hurdle’ in board review

Higher education panel recommends approval, a prerequisite to move forward

at its quarterly meeting Thursday and Friday. The recommendation includes the condition that UH pursue scholarships and loan repayment programs to achieve its goal of having 50 percent of students come from minority populations.

“We’re pretty confident that Coordinating Board approval hopeful sign for the public institution’s bid to open the city’s first new school awarding degrees for doctors in nearly half a century.

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board is scheduled to take up the recommendation

A committee of the state’s higher education regulatory board is recommending approval of a University of Houston College of Medicine, a

will happen,” said Dr. Stephen Spann, founding dean of the proposed UH college. “Such approval will be a major milestone in our progress.”

The Coordinating Board review of the proposal comes nearly one year after UH regents approved the pursuit of a medical school, a longtime dream of the 91-year-old university. The plan calls for the school to produce primary-care doctors to serve in underserved areas, a huge need in Houston and other parts of Texas.

Thursday’s review also comes two months after the Coordinating Board signed off on an osteopathic medical school at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville. It also aims to produce primary-care doctors for underserved areas, though its focus is to be rural parts of east Texas.

Spann said Coordinating Board approval is “an absolute hurdle,” a prerequisite for other steps. He noted that UH can’t offer degrees without Coordinating Board approval and the Liaison Committee on Medical Education won’t accredit a new school not approved by its state higher education regulatory body. Also, such approval is expected to influence the Texas Legislature, from which UH plans to request $40 million over 10 years.

Spann said he hopes to submit application materials for LCME accreditation in December. Such accreditation could be granted no earlier than October 2019, said Spann, in time for UH’s hope to start enrolling students in fall 2020.

UH Tuesday released a video, to be promoted on social media and sent to legislators and Coordinating Board members, making the case for the proposed school. Featuring Jim “Mattress Mack” McIngvale and the heads of the Texas Medical Center and the Greater Houston Partnership, along with Spann and UH President Renu Khator, it notes that Texas ranks 47 out of 50 states in terms of the ratio of primary-care doctors per person and describes health problems in some parts of Houston as “similar to those of Third World countries.”

That UH make scholarships and loan repayment programs part of its plan to help lure minority students was one of two recommendations adopted by the Coordinating Board’s committee on academic and workforce success at its September meeting. The other was that the university provide documentation of its hiring of 20 core faculty prior to the enrollment of the first class.

Spann, who has appointed three associate deans and three department chairs, said the plan already calls for the hiring of more than 20 faculty before August 2020. He said the Coordinating Board’s condition that UH pursue minority scholarships and loan repayment grants is consistent with its stated goals and efforts.

Earlier this year, UH announced it has received an anonymous $3 million donation that will pay for tuition and fees for all four years for 30 students that comprise the school’s first class. In addition, Spann said Tuesday, the school has received a donation from the O’Quinn Foundation that will cover tuition and fees for 10 students for its second class.