Medical students criticize school in St. Kitts

A new semester is under way at a Latrobe man's Caribbean medical school, where former students said they endured verbal abuse, learned under unsafe conditions and witnessed improper treatment of cadavers.

Meanwhile, government officials in St. Kitts continue to investigate St. Theresa's Medical University, opened in 2005 by Thomas M. Uhrin, 43, of 17 Barbara Road.

St. Theresa's is among about two dozen for-profit medical schools throughout the Caribbean that are popular among Americans denied admission to U.S. schools for various reasons, including a lack of space or because the students do not have sufficient grades, test scores or money. With no uniform application procedures, admission requirements and curriculum standards, the schools often don't prepare students for U.S. licensing exams, medical education experts said.

Six former St. Theresa's students -- from New York, Michigan and Ohio -- contacted the Tribune-Review after reading a Jan. 1 story about the school headquartered in Latrobe. During separate, corroborating phone interviews, each described a volatile atmosphere punctuated by frequent displays of foul language, ethnic slurs, screaming and tantrums from Uhrin and the school's president, registered nurse Jeffrey Irwin, 42, also of 17 Barbara Road.

With graphic detail, the students also revealed they participated in anatomy classes where dissected human body parts -- including a cadaver's face -- were thrown out in the regular school garbage.

The former students said they were among 17 medical and pharmacy students enrolled during the initial fall semester in September 2005. They said 15 quit before it was over.

"We all left when we found out it wasn't legitimate," said Danny Israilov, who transferred to a physician's assistant program in New York.

Uhrin did not respond to requests for comment. Irwin said classes resumed after the holidays for an undisclosed number of students. When asked to comment further, he lashed out at a reporter with a barrage of foul language, threatened legal action and hung up.

Uhrin was fired in 2004 from the International University of Health Sciences in St. Kitts for falsifying his academic credentials, according to R.J. Simms, vice president of administration and finance. Uhrin has admitted that he did not complete his medical training after earning a degree from Central American Health Sciences University and that he has never been licensed as a physician.

Former student Mary Anne Sukonik, a medical transcriptionist for 25 years, said Uhrin's lack of training was apparent during her classes at the school, which charges $6,500 tuition per semester.

Sukonik, 46, of Warren, Ohio, said Uhrin -- the school's chancellor and executive dean -- was teaching an anatomy class using a rotund male cadaver when fatty tissue was removed from the body and thrown into an open bucket on the floor. She said the contents were discarded with the regular garbage.

"On the last day, we pulled the face off. The face went in the bucket. That's the epitome of sacrilege. Even if the man donated his body, he had a right to have it treated properly," Sukonik said.

Dr. Patrick Martin, chief medical officer in the St. Kitts Ministry of Health, said the law requires those dealing with medical waste to follow guidelines developed by the World Health Organization that call for secure containment and disposal of tissue, fluid and recognizable body parts. Martin, who had been unaware St. Theresa's uses cadavers until an October interview with the Tribune-Review, was disturbed by Sukonik's allegations.

"If that did occur, it would be horrible. These things should be disposed of in a safe, sanitary and dignified manner," Martin said.

Sukonik described unsanitary conditions in the anatomy lab housed in a ranch home across a rear alley from the main school building. In September, a Tribune-Review reporter toured the school and observed a cadaver in a black body bag kept in an unlocked, air-conditioned room.

"The body we used was not preserved properly for medical-school use. There was mold on the body. It was so moldy at one point that we had to scrape off the mold and put bleach in a bottle to spray the body so we could work on it," Sukonik said.

Sukonik said she suffered a deep cut to her arm after being accidentally slashed with a scalpel held by another student. She said they were not taught safety precautions with surgical instruments.

"I was bleeding pretty badly. Uhrin wanted me to go to the emergency room and I said, 'You're a doctor; sew me up. I trust you,' " she said. "When he wouldn't, I knew something was wrong."

Bassam Gobah, 24, of Detroit, Mich., said he saw body fat and tissue thrown into the garbage and recalls Sukonik's injury.

"I was there that day. She was all bloody," he said.

Gobah, now a criminal justice student at Wayne State University in Detroit, said he chose St. Theresa's based on its Web site and his quick acceptance. He said Uhrin was "very nice" when recruiting students.

"But then, he got very demanding and did a 180 on everybody. He started yelling in class. He threatens people," he said.

Israilov, who is Jewish, said he became upset because Irwin and Uhrin also tried to "pit us against" Arab students by making comments "to make us hate each other."

"The way the guy -- Uhrin -- was acting, it was crazy. He acted like no educator. He was screaming and yelling," he said.

Yunus Wasel, 24, who is completing his bachelor's degree in biology at Wayne State, shared an apartment in St. Kitts with Gobah after they were denied admission to pharmacy schools in the U.S.

"Five of us went together. I thought it was odd that they accepted all of us, but I figured it was small and just starting up. They kept promising us that it was going to grow, that it was going to be accredited and that financial aid was coming," Wasel said.

He said school administrators pushed them to apply for loans "through a sister school in England" that carried a high interest rate, 16 percent, almost double the rate on federal student loans in the U.S.

"We realized then that this doesn't look real, that they're not trustworthy. We were already spending $2,100 a month in rent and groceries were high. We figured we were better off leaving," he said.

St. Theresa's has been the subject of separate investigations by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Education's accreditation board stemming from questions about Uhrin's credentials and another unspecified complaint. Martin would not discuss the outcome of the Health Ministry's probe. Shawna Lake, chairman of the accreditation board, said the board's investigation is incomplete.

A dozen students were enrolled during the fall semester that ended in mid-December, staff and students said. The Tribune-Review has been unable to determine how many are there now.

Sukonik, who transferred to the Universidad Autonoma de Guadalajara in Mexico to complete her medical degree, said she worries about the students in St. Kitts.

"I think Tom Uhrin and Jeff Irwin had the best of intentions -- to start a medical school and teach students to be doctors and make a lot of money in the process," she said.

"But just because you want something doesn't mean you have the tools to make it happen."