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11 October, 2000 Talbot D'Alemberte President Florida State University Office of the President 211 Westcott Building Tallahassee, FL 32306-1470 Dear President D'Alemberte: Thank you for faxing your response to the editorial letter I sent to the American Association of Medical College's Academic Physician &Scientist. I appreciate your disagreement with my position, however, I stand by what I wrote. Let me briefly comment upon why I continue to disagree with the Legislature's action to create a new medical school at FSU, despite the fact that you and I clearly agree on the fact that we need to better care for the health needs of our citizens. The central issue of my disagreement does not spring from the fact that FSU is getting a medical school. That was, I hope, abundantly clear in the letter I wrote. I tried as best I could to ensure that this was not viewed as a battle between FSU and UF. The central issue also has little to do with the MGT/Janeway study you reference. Our disagreement, or perhaps better said, my disagreement with the Legislature is not a misunderstanding that can be resolved with a new or different set of specialized facts. Rather, it is a principled disagreement related to governance and decision making. At its inception, the BOR was empowered to create the "strategic plan" for the SUS. Indeed, one of the reasons the BOR came into existence was because of political manipulation of our, then smaller, university system by the legislature. The Legislature's disbanding of the BOR and implementation of policy to create two new law schools and one new medical school are, in my view, not separate issues. They are the Legislature attempting to re-exert its direct control over the SUS; this is potentially disastrous for all of us. While I believe very strongly that the Legislature has a legitimate role to play in the SUS, it is most assuredly not a role that includes deciding where new professional schools will be placed. This is bad educational policy. It is bad legislative policy. It is bad fiscal policy. Will a new medical school improve the care of our rural citizens ? Let me say, again, I think not. If we want to improve rural health care, if we want more primary care physicians then the money to be spent on the new medical school campus ought to be placed, instead, on enlarging training programs for general internal medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics/gynecology, and family practice. Thereafter, the State, if truly concerned with issues of primary care and access to health care, would provide incentives to those physicians who went to rural areas. I point out, again, none of this has been done. Instead, our State, which inadequately funds higher education, is now putting a down payment on a new medical school that will, in the end, provide the same specialty care programs as do our other schools. This misconception of the role of the medical school and its relation to physician specialization is not a particularly Floridian issue, but it is an error that-- having been made by others-- we ought not to have recapitulated. So, President D'Alemberte, with all respect, I still disagree with you on this issue. I am, again, pleased that you sent me your letter. I will be pleased and honored to discuss this with you further, if you think it of importance. I will also be pleased to work with you, my colleagues, and our leadership to improve the access to and provision of health care to our citizens. I wish you well. Yours, A. Joseph Layon,
MD, University of
Florida College of Medicine Voice:
352.395.0486 |