KU School of Medicine-Wichita

First class of first-year students graduates. A simulation center is added to the KUSM-W campus, run by HealthSim United. 27 The concept of forming partnerships with the existing medical education and medical professional communities to start a satellite campus of KU School of Medicine was met with skepticism, recalled Garold Minns, M.D., who was in the second graduating class of KUSM-Wichita (1976) and has been dean of the campus for the past nine years. It was a creative model since most medical schools are attached to academic medical centers. It's a model that has shown community- based education and professional partnerships can work, said Minns. As KUSM-Wichita's academic dean, Minns and his team of administrators realize that continuing the vision and work of the school's founders rests with them. Like their predecessors, they are looking at ways to continue the visionary spirit and community involvement that formed the foundation of the school. Their eorts are enhancing patient care and clinical experiences, improving medical education and ramping up research programs. patient care through graduates and faculty A motivating factor for creating KUSM-Wichita was to address the doctor-shortage crisis in rural Kansas in the 1970s. Today, the school embraces its tagline of "A Healthy Kansas Starts Here." "One of the real strengths of this school is our graduate medical educa- tion programs and how they serve the region and the state," said Brian Pate, M.D., a 1995 graduate of the school who now leads the Department of Pediatrics. "For example, our pediatric residency program is the only such program in Kansas and 70% of our graduates go on to work in Kansas eventually, with about half going into primary care and about half going into specialty care." To adequately train the next generation of doctors, KUSM-Wichita has helped bring several specialty providers to the Wichita area to serve as its faculty and see patients. "The medical school has been instrumental in bringing in certain specialties that likely wouldn't be here without the school," said Minns. The school's faculty are providing much- needed medical expertise to the region, he said, noting the work of Donna Sweet, M.D., who became known as the "AIDS doctor," and the growing subspecialties of care for pediatric patients. For example, KUSM-Wichita has the only pediatric infectious disease doctor west of Kansas City, as well as a pediatric oncologist, Minns noted. To continue to provide quality medical education and enhance the number of specialties, KUSM-Wichita will need to grow its full-time faculty numbers, Minns said. Currently, the school has nearly 100 full-time faculty, more than 80 part-time faculty and more than 1,000 volunteer faculty. As the state's largest city, Wichita encompasses Kansas' largest medical community and is home to other higher-education institutions involved in providing medical education. Just as early partnerships with those hospitals and universities helped create KUSM-Wichita, those partnerships can help it grow, Minns said. For example, patient care now often involves a team-based approach, requiring physicians and others to KU Wichita Center for Health Care opens at 8533 E. 32nd St. N. in Wichita. 2014 2015 2015 "They proved the doubters wrong. I have to admire the vision, work, skill and organizing talent that led to this campus." Dean Garold Minns, M.D.

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