State review will look at funding, control of EVMS

NORFOLK

For the next few months, a lot of attention will go to the question of Eastern Virginia Medical School's structure.

Should it be more like the state's other public medical schools - at the University of Virginia and Virginia Commonwealth University - which have relatively more state funding, but also more regulations?

Or, should those schools be more like EVMS?

"EVMS has been sort of a hybrid over the years," said Thomas Daley, deputy director for the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, which is conducting the extensive review of EVMS' operations.

The school, he observed, has "some characteristics of a public institution and some characteristics of a private institution."

The review was one of the strings tied to a General Assembly decision in the spring to include $59 million in a state bond package for a new building to help EVMS increase class sizes.

The study, which will contain recommendations for changes for EVMS and medical education in Virginia, is due in November to the General Assembly and Gov. Timothy M. Kaine.

"I consider it an opportunity to get at what we are," said EVMS President Harry Lester.

That ambiguity has roots in EVMS' founding.

In the 1960s, when the General Assembly was debating how much support to give to the proposed new medical school in Norfolk, legislators decided to give it a public charter but no state funding.

Local leaders raised $17 million to start the school, which opened to students in 1973. Over the years, EVMS came to be included in state budgets, but never at the level of U.Va.'s and VCU's medical schools.

EVMS' $179 million operating budget for 2009 includes about $16.7 million in state appropriations.

"We're the real deal in every way, we're just not funded the way the others are," Lester said. "We also don't have the same responsibilities to the state."

What EVMS has that the other public medical colleges crave is more freedom from state regulations, particularly onerous purchasing rules under the Virginia's Public Procurement Act.

Lester said that because the $59 million in capital funds is coming from the state, EVMS is voluntarily following Virginia's regulations for the new building, which will house classroom and research space.

One of the things the higher education council will review is EVMS' purchasing procedures, along with its academic, clinical and research programs, Daley said.

Both Daley and Lester said it was too soon to tell what changes might be recommended in the way EVMS is governed and funded. One change previously mandated by the General Assembly is that the school's Board of Visitors - which has been filled with designees from local governments and the school's foundation - will include several state-level appointees.

The study is also an opportunity to examine Virginia's medical education in general, Daley said.

The backdrop for EVMS receiving money for a new building is the need to increase class sizes. The Association of American Medical Colleges has recommended boosting medical school class sizes by 30 percent to head off an impending physician shortage.

Daley said the study will "look at the changing health care work force needs regionally and nationally" and analyze whether "our institutions are on track to meet that anticipated increase in work force need."

The study will also look at how well the medical schools are doing at keeping their graduates in Virginia.

"How does it help us if the graduates don't stay in Virginia to practice?" Daley said.

Nancy Young, (757) 446-2947, nancy.young@pilotonline.com The General Assembly decided in the spring to include $59 million in a state bond package for a new building for EVMS. One of the strings tied to the decision was a review of EVMS' operations.