Dr. Scott Strome is training the doctors who help you
Harvard-trained physician and cancer researcher looks for ways to help young doctors ease debt load
He was just a young guy when he dabbled with how you might transplant a horse larynx. That was at Harvard Medical School. Then he bore down on cancer. That was at Mayo Clinic. He always thought Dr. Lieping Chen, the lead scientist he aided at Mayo, should win the Nobel Prize.
Then he helped pioneer the discovery of biomolecules able to fend off autoimmune diseases.
That was at the University of Maryland, where he earned an Entrepreneur of the Year Award. So what’ll he do next? Move to Memphis.
Scott Strome
Dr. Scott E. Strome is the new executive dean of the College of Medicine at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.
Strome probably never will treat Memphians for neck pains or whatever else ails them. Chances are he’ll touch the city another way.
A Harvard-trained physician and cancer researcher who co-founded the Baltimore biomedical startup Gliknik Inc., Strome arrives in Memphis at a peculiar time in the history of American medicine.
Science has delivered insights in the country’s long-fought war on cancer — expensive insights. U.S. cancer care and research spending now tops $150 billion per year. Yet economics has delivered young doctors a despairing lesson. Their field is not one to get rich in, at least not quickly.
“The main problem that plagues medical students is debt,” Strome said in a recent interview.
Over the next few years, he will look for ways to ease that debt load for aspiring physicians. At the same time, he will strive to complete multiple goals: ensure quality medical care for Memphians, ramp up new research centers and draw in investors able to help fund entrepreneurial breakthroughs.
“One way we need to grow,” he said, “is to grow our research mission.”
Social mobility
Strome, 53, has started house hunt-
ing in Memphis. He expects to settle into the new role by mid September.
He grew up in the upscale Boston suburb of Lexington, learned to fly fish with his physician father, neck and head specialist Marshall Strome, then graduated from Dartmouth University and enrolled in Harvard Medical School where his father taught.
Together, they worked on transplanting a horse larynx. The work became a model for the first human larynx transplant, according to Strome’s biography on the University of Maryland’s website.
After graduating Harvard, the younger Strome, also a head and neck specialist, interned at the University of Michigan medical school, following his father’s footsteps. When Marshall Strome enrolled in the University of Michigan medical school years before his son, he was the oldest grandchild in a family without a college degree.
About the time Strome settles into his new job, one of his three children will be in classes. She’s also enrolled in the Michigan medical school.
‘Best of the best’
For all his education and following in his father’s esteemed career path (Marshall Strome rose to become director of the the Head and Neck Transplantation Program at Roosevelt St. Luke’s Hospital in New York City), the younger Strome has an everyday touch about him.
“Cancer is not a picture,” Scott Strome said. “It’s like a movie. There’s essentially a war going on where you have cells trying to kill tumors.
“Right now quality of care is the name of game in health care. I want to make certain everybody who needs care has access to quality care in the Memphis area.”
In his new role, Strome will oversee the medical schools in Chattanooga, Knoxville and Nashville from UTHSC’s flagship medical school off Union Avenue in the Memphis Medical District.
Last year, the College of Medicine employed 1,213 faculty members on the four campuses. The faculty taught 676 medical students, 54 physician assistant students, 1,285 medical interns and residents and 90 post-doctorate trainees and fellows.
Strome takes over a medical school that has been in transition. Under an improvement plan launched by UTHSC Chancellor Steve Schwab, almost all the school buildings serving the various discplines taught on the Memphis campus have been renovated or rebuilt at a cost of $250 million. Hundreds of new faculty members have been hired.
Strome replaces Dr. David Stern, now the vice chancellor for health affairs for statewide initiatives. As the medical school dean, Stern brought in 30 nationally known department chairs or directors and 65 new faculty members engaged in scientific research, according to UTHSC.
Ken Brown, the UTHSC vice chancellor who led the search committee that recruited Strome, considers the hiring a coup.
“From an extraordinary pool of exceptionally well-qualified candidates, Dr. Strome was hands down the best of the very best,” Brown said. “Our institution is very fortunate to be able to recruit him from the fine institution from which he comes, and I have no doubt our history will reflect his coming here to be another pivotal time in our successful evolution.”
Debt loads
Strome is moving here when an unusually strong wind piles against the medical profession.
Income for the nearly 1,500 surgeons and physicians practicing in metropolitan Memphis averaged about $250,000 per year, a 2016 federal income survey reported. Highly experienced doctors earn more, but new doctors earn far less.
Because their college debt can surpass $300,000, many young physicians sense an overwhelming financial burden, particularly if they want to buy a house and have children.
High debts get new MDs graded as poor credit risks if they try to open their own practice. Building managers often won’t lease them space for medical offices. As a result, many join medical practices under the auspices of the hospital.
“I want them to be able to come to medical school for the sheer joy of becoming a doctor and not be dissuaded because of the debt,” Strome said.
He wants more classes for would-be doctors on debt management and financial responsibility, and also more emphasis on finding research grants and donations. The former can free up money for scholarships. The latter has been building for several years. Philanthropic support for the medical college totaled $38.2 million in 2016.
Ramping up
Separate from the debt is the learning environment. The old teaching standard regarded each student like an apprentice tasked to learn a set array of facts. Then the volume of information exploded — particularly as discoveries by scientists at facilities such as St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis traced changes at the molecule level to growth in cancers.
Medical schools nationwide now try to prepare students for learning new material throughout their career. Along with that explosion of information has come the desire of many would-be physicians for training in special medical fields promising higher income and perhaps career paths to Wall Street or medical businesses.
These specialties often require more scientific research. Yet federal research grants funded by taxpayers have become less generous. UTHSC researchers last year were awarded $33.7 million in National Institutes of Health grants, down 14 percent from a decade earlier.
To help bring in more grants, Strome figures UTHSC can deepen ties with St. Jude scientists working in fields such as genetics and sickle cell research. The college also can focus on medical research into maladies not addressed in large fashion at other universities.
This could lead to national recognition for UTHSC as a center of excellence for rare diseases, he said. Topics that need deeper research include rare tumors and genetic diseases such as congenital hearing loss.
“It’s a need nationally. Big pharma would be interested,” Strome said, referring to large drug companies. “I think you’d have willing partners helping to move it forward.’’
For now, Strome is getting situated in his new job.
Ted Evanoff, business columnist of The Commercial Appeal, can be reached at evanoff@commercialappeal.com and (901) 529-2292.