4-year West Penn Allegheny medical school in works

With demand for doctors rising, West Penn Allegheny Health System will announce plans for a new medical school at a reception Downtown on Friday.

Formal invitations from CEO Christopher Olivia billed a reception at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center as "a special announcement that celebrates tomorrow's physicians."

Although the health system has not filed a public application with the national group that accredits medical schools, state Sen. Jim Ferlo, D-Highland Park, said Olivia has told a community collaborative that West Penn Allegheny has been in negotiations with the Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia for a year about establishing a four-year medical school in Pittsburgh.

A health system spokeswoman confirmed Olivia will address plans for a new medical school here, but declined to elaborate. "We have definite plans, and we're going to share them on the 10th," said West Penn Allegheny spokeswoman Kelly Sorice.

The financially strapped health system, which recently reported a $22 million loss for the third quarter of the 2011 fiscal year, has been working to expand to a full medical school for nearly a decade, talking with various schools along the way.

Officials at Temple did not return calls for comment. West Penn Allegheny has long-standing teaching affiliations with both Temple and Drexel University, another Philadelphia medical school, as well as the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine.

State Senate Minority Leader Jay Costa, D-Forest Hills, said that when he last spoke with officials from West Penn Allegheny a month ago, they told him they were moving forward with plans for a medical school with Temple, with the goal of providing Pennsylvania students with another option for medical education.

"Something like this doesn't happen overnight," Costa said, adding that members of his caucus were first approached about the plan more than a year ago.

The announcement comes in the midst of negotiations between West Penn Allegheny and Highmark Inc. on a possible deal that would call for the insurance giant to take over the health system.

Highmark spokesman Michael Weinstein declined to comment when asked whether the company was involved with plans for the medical school.

The Association of American Medical Colleges has warned that the United States must begin educating at least 5,000 more doctors every year to meet demands that will be created as more and more physicians retire while the medical needs of the baby boom generation grow.

Pennsylvania is home to seven medical schools as well as two colleges of osteopathic medicine, all of which train physicians. Even so, the Pennsylvania Medical Society's 2011 State of Medicine Report identified the need to increase the number of physicians in the state as its top priority. The report identified physician shortages in family practice, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, general surgery, orthopedic surgery, radiology, cardiology, emergency medicine and pediatrics in a state in which about 25 percent of practicing physicians are older than 60.

The state's newest medical school, The Commonwealth Medical College in Scranton, opened in 2009, the same year the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine opened a teaching site at Seton Hill University in Greensburg.

Dr. Ralph Schmeltz, president of the Pennsylvania Medical Society, said Lehigh Valley Hospital is negotiating an agreement with the University of South Florida to initiate a program that would have students spend their first two years of medical school in Tampa, then finish their training at Lehigh Valley.

"We did a survey of young physicians and asked them what attracts them to an area. And now we have data that Pennsylvania residents who train in Pennsylvania are more likely to stay in Pennsylvania," Schmeltz said.

In an interview with the Tribune-Review last year, Olivia speculated that West Penn Allegheny could fill a niche by educating physicians to remain in the region. He said the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine became so competitive that Pennsylvania residents make up only 26 percent of the freshman class.

"They're a highly rated school, and they're doing a marvelous job, and the city should be very proud of that, but there is a downside in that they no longer educate a lot of students out of Western Pennsylvania," he said.

Schmeltz, who is on the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh medical school, said he has no concerns about finding qualified students to fill slots in the new medical schools.

"I've been involved in teaching medical students for a long time, and I'm not worried," Schmeltz said. "The pool of qualified applicants is so large compared to the spots available. The bigger question is: Who is going to teach them• It's great to have all these new medical schools opening, but the question is: Are we going to have adequate residencies to train physicians?"

West Penn Allegheny is the second-largest health care system in the region with five hospitals: Allegheny General, West Penn, Forbes Regional Hospital in Monroeville, Allegheny Valley Hospital in Natrona Heights and Canonsburg General Hospital in Washington County.