Poll of the week: NW Ark. "satellite" medical school

UAMS NW "satellite" campus: For or against?

Yes, we need more highly qualified physicians to reach our goal of better health care, especially in rural Arkansas. This satellite campus is a step in the right direction. Against. We can educate more doctors at the current medical school in Little Rock. Expanding to a separate campus is costly and should not be among the state's highest priorities. If we can afford to expand educational opportunities for professionals, rather than a satellite medical school, we need a school. view results comments

Do we need a second medical school in Arkansas? Many will correct me by saying that the UAMS proposal is merely a "satellite" campus in Fayetteville and not a second medical school, but the only difference is that the current proposal would only allow third and fourth year medical students to study at the new campus. In the era of term limits, institutional memory is limited, so increasing the appropriation to include funding to the school for first and second year students may not seem like such a big jump to a future Legislature.

I'm a firm believer that we need more highly qualified doctors in the state in order to reach our goal of increasing the quality of health care -- especially in rural Arkansas. The question then turns on whether we can educate those additional future physicians at the school we already have. Earlier this year, the Legislature appropriated $1.9 million of the state's budget surplus for the project. Now we're told that the project will cost between $5 million and $8 million annually. Some legislators think that this is something we can't afford, and even if we could, we should spend the money on professional schools Arkansas doesn't currently have, such as a school of dentistry or veterinary medicine. What do you think?

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