SUNY Downstate Well being Sciences College, Brooklyn.
Photograph courtesy SUNY Downstate Well being Sciences College
We, the unified scholar physique of Downstate Well being Sciences College, want to categorical our deep considerations over the proposed transformation of the College Hospital at Downstate (UHD). We wholeheartedly endorse the message revealed by our medical faculty’s division chairs earlier this month. As college students, we want to add to this message by expressing our fears about the way forward for our schooling.
The messaging surrounding the transformation of the UHD constantly emphasizes that the varsity will stay unaffected on this transformation. That is patently false. Any plan to shut the hospital may have profound destructive impacts on the schooling {and professional} outcomes of present and future college students enrolled in all faculties at Downstate Well being Sciences College. Closure of UHD will instantly impression our: Foundational Schooling, Medical Coaching, Analysis Prowess, and Skilled Alternatives.
Foundational Schooling
The proposed closure of UHD not solely threatens the sensible points of our foundational schooling but in addition jeopardizes the material of our tutorial group. The school, a lot of whom are employed by or apply on the hospital, are integral to our schooling. We already face challenges with school preceptorship of important instructional modules similar to thesis sponsorship, medical clerkship, small-group studying, interactive lectures, and medical abilities coaching. Lots of our educators selected Downstate for the chance to serve its distinctive group. With out a hospital to serve, their incentive to remain diminishes. We should additionally take into account that the inpatient medical employees, given obscure assurances of job safety, will search employment stability elsewhere.
Bodily proximity to our instructing school cultivates an surroundings the place we will obtain schooling outdoors of formal tutorial constructions. If our school are dispersed because of the hospital’s closure, it is going to be inconceivable to take care of these important studying experiences.
Lowered entry to mentorship, shadowing, and networking can be an insurmountable barrier to our profession growth. This disruption to our foundational schooling isn’t merely a logistical concern, however a profound risk to the way forward for healthcare excellence that Downstate has lengthy stood for.
Medical Coaching
The closure of UHD casts a protracted shadow over our medical coaching. UHD accounts for a considerable variety of the accessible rotation spots within the core curricula within the Faculty of Medication, the Faculty of Nursing, and the Faculty of Well being Professionals. With out our hospital, the place will we discover medical coaching that prioritizes the schooling of SUNY college students? Different affiliate establishments might not maintain our schooling in the identical regard, and the competitors for rotation spots is fierce, particularly when different faculties provide monetary incentives to hospitals for precedence. The inpatient rotations at UHD comprise a mandatory element of the schooling we pay for.
Downstate’s dedication to early medical publicity is instantly associated to the success of the well being care practitioners who name Downstate their alma mater. Many of those hands-on
studying experiences, that are important within the early levels of our coaching, happen inside our personal hospital. Moreover, direct entry to hospital sources is paramount for the “self-starter” schooling we cherish. A bodily connection between classroom and hospital buildings permits college students unfettered entry to shadowing and analysis alternatives, fostering an surroundings of proactive studying and discovery. The prospect of changing such entry with the clearance boundaries confronted at different establishments raises considerations about the way forward for our self-directed instructional endeavors and the sensible abilities we acquire from them.
Analysis Prowess
The vitality of Downstate’s analysis prowess is inextricably linked to the operational standing of the College Hospital. A lot of our medical and translational analysis is rooted within the affected person populations served by Downstate. College students throughout all faculties are deeply dedicated to researching efficient and equitable well being care via a wide selection of medical research, chart critiques, public well being measures, and laboratory bench analysis.
Moreover, cutting-edge translational analysis performed by and in partnership with inpatient medical departments has traditionally introduced a substantial amount of analysis funding to the College. With out a symbiotic relationship between instructional departments and the hospital, we’ll lose entry to attendings, residents, fellows, sufferers, affected person samples, analysis gear, and medical data, representing a dramatic loss in prime quality analysis alternatives accessible to college students in each program at Downstate.
Because the panorama of medical specialties grows more and more aggressive, and with USMLE Step 1 transitioning to a move/fail system, analysis has develop into indispensable as the foremost means for college kids to differentiate themselves throughout their medical coaching, thus growing the demand for analysis alternatives. This demand is already tough to satisfy.
Closing UHD would possible hinder the recruitment of recent school who may in any other case be interested in Downstate to handle well being disparities and illnesses which might be core to our affected person inhabitants. The remaining non-physician school would possible have elevated instructing and administrative hundreds on the expense of their scholar mentees and analysis endeavors. Closing UHD and exhausting our already restricted analysis sources would harm college students and school in each self-discipline.
Skilled Alternatives
The status of Downstate trainees for his or her medical prowess is acknowledged nationwide, a testomony to the distinctive coaching they obtain. Downstate college students are identified for turning into very important workforce members early of their schooling, contributing considerably to affected person care. The proposed discount of sources and closure of the hospital will pressure an already taxed system, probably compromising the standard of coaching and the way forward for our healthcare professionals. This can have a destructive impression on residency prospects for medical college students and job prospects for all college students. Specifically, it will hurt many people who’re minority and first-generation college students—over 50% of the scholar physique (the best
proportion by far amongst all NY medical faculties)—who closely depend on the establishment for networking and mentorship.
College Hospital at Downstate represents a chance for graduates to proceed intimately serving the group via their coaching, with Downstate physicians traditionally serving New York State in massive numbers. The potential lack of residency spots via the hospital closure raises considerations concerning the continuity of look after sufferers and the supply of jobs for graduates. Positions at affiliate establishments can not exchange the cohesive coaching surroundings and diversity-centered values that Downstate prides itself on. The uncertainty surrounding Downstate’s future has already impacted our status, with present and future college students and residents questioning whether or not the establishment will
exist for the whole thing of their coaching. Sure closure of the hospital wouldn’t solely tarnish Downstate’s status as a faculty but in addition deter potential college students and residents who align with our mission assertion, in the end depriving our group of proficient physicians who’re devoted to serving central Brooklyn. It’s essential that the State of New York acknowledges the far-reaching implications of this closure, not simply on the present scholar physique however on the way forward for healthcare in our group and on all of New York State.
Name to Motion
SUNY Chancellor King has known as SUNY Downstate Well being Sciences College the “gem of the SUNY system.” We plainly acknowledge the disconnect between the reverence held for our esteemed establishment and this blatant try to deprive college students—a cohort of future leaders within the biomedical sciences—of their most important useful resource. We sincerely hope to be handled just like the gem we’re. Moderately than closing our hospital, we suggest you put money into our at present under-resourced hospital and academic departments. Moderately than closing our hospital, we suggest you conduct an business customary group well being wants evaluation to empirically determine what our group wants to guide wholesome lives.
We’re conscious that the State of New York is contemplating offering SUNY Downstate with as much as 500 million {dollars}, with proposals to switch our hospital with public reasonably priced housing, a variety analysis institute, and a brand new scholar recreation heart/residing group. We firmly imagine that none of those choices will profit our schooling or profit SUNY Downstate as a complete. We suggest you make investments these funds in Downstate’s present hospital-based instructional capital by renovating present areas and hiring new school to make sure the continuity of the world-class coaching supplied right here. Whether it is mandatory that these funds be used for the development of recent infrastructure, we want scholar representatives to take part within the planning for amenities that may enable Downstate to proceed offering mandatory care to the group and guarantee glorious instructional alternatives to all Downstate college students.
Yearly college students select to coach at Downstate Well being Sciences College for its core values, PRIDE: Professionalism, Respect, Innovation, Range, and Excellence. Closure of the College Hospital at Downstate would put nice pressure on all members of the Downstate group to meet these values, values that our scholar physique needs to uphold as we start our skilled journeys. Closure of a hospital serving the guts of a neighborhood identified nationwide for a various affected person inhabitants with distinctive medical wants in direct battle with our mission: “To look after and enhance the lives of our globally numerous communities.” We stand in solidarity with our mentors, our educators, and the group we serve towards the closure of the College Hospital at Downstate.
