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Kurt Meyers

As part of the survey effort, some healthcare leaders answered more detailed questions concerning facility plans for 2007.

Kurt Meyers, CEO, Rebsamen Medical Center, Jacksonville

Medical News: As CEO at Rebsamen Medical Center, you have fast-growing Cabot to the north and the Little Rock Air Force Base in your backyard. What are some things that your hospital is doing in the northwest corner of Lonoke County and how do you handle all the federal employees?

"The fast-growing community of Cabot and ever-changing community of the AFB each bring their own challenges to our organization. With Lonoke County's demographics, I believe Rebsamen is uniquely positioned to continue to meet their service needs. With Rebsamen's association with a large contingency of primary care physicians in Cabot, we are able to provide service to a wide spectrum of patients. Our family physicians, medicine, and pediatric specialists provide full family care.

The new additions to Cabot Medical Park have improved our ability to provide imaging services. Our partnership with Radiology Associates, PA, has enhanced our ability to provide diagnostics to include MRI, CT Scan and ultrasound, and allows us room for expansion as needed. We've also added physical rehabilitation services, an on-site pharmacy and specialty physician space.

Rebsamen Medical Center in partnership with Jacksonville and Cabot Medical Clinics works in conjunction with the LRAFB clinic to coordinate care for TRICARE patients. With the facilitation of primary care and ancillary services, our clinics work in collaboration to afford our military, both active and retired, access to quality healthcare."



Dr. I. Dodd Wilson, Chancellor, UAMS and Dr. Debra Fiser, Dean, UAMS College of Medicine, Little Rock

Medical News: As the state's only medical school, what are some things UAMS is planning for 2007 and beyond to handle the coming shortages in healthcare professionals?

WILSON: "UAMS has five colleges (Medicine, Pharmacy, Nursing, Health Related Professions and Public Health) and a graduate school. It is clear that the shortages in healthcare professionals will extend across all professions for which we have educational programs, including the 18 disciplines in the College of Health Related Professions.

UAMS has expanded its enrollment every year since 2000, and now has about 33 percent more students in its colleges than it did six years ago. Our intention is to continue this expansion. The limitations are in teaching space on the UAMS campus and in clinical educational sites for these additional students.

As a partial solution to the problems, we are hoping, as of today (Oct. 30), that the Higher Education Savings Bonds will pass in the coming election and that we can develop a workable plan for our first satellite campus in Northwest Arkansas. This will allow UAMS to expand our medical school class from about 150 to nearly 200 over the next decade, and to handle the already enlarged pharmacy class that has increased by 45 students annually. This satellite campus will also allow UAMS to educate more students in various areas of allied health. There will be possibilities for collaboration with the School of Nursing at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. Overall, the additions to the student body at UAMS will help to alleviate the certain shortages in the healthcare professionals over the next two decades."

FISER: "The College of Medicine would like to increase its class size from the current 160 per year to 200 per year by 2010. This increase is needed to deal with the increasing needs projected as baby boomers age and as baby boomer physicians retire.

There are several challenges that we must address to make this possible. Medical school education is divided into the preclinical years (years 1 and 2) and the clinical years (years 3 and 4). In order to take more students into the preclinical years, we need some larger classrooms to hold more students. We are hoping to construct these using the proceeds of the Higher Education Bonds, which are on the November 7 ballot. We also need to renovate the gross anatomy lab to accommodate more students and will need more instructors for that course.

For the third and fourth years, we need additional clinical training sites and we are looking at the possibility of developing a satellite campus in Northwest Arkansas to accommodate this need. For this to happen, we will need to establish five new core residency programs in Northwest Arkansas. And we will need to identify hospital partners willing to accept residents. Because some hospitals already have residents and are limited by caps, we will need to lift the federal caps to allow growth. We will need facilities to house these programs and funding to pay for core faculty and staff. We are very encouraged by the reception we have received so far by potential partners in the northwest and hope that this can be a reality within the next couple of years."




December 2006

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