IU School of Medicine looks to have students rotate to other campuses

INDIANAPOLIS – IU started boosting its medical school class size last fall to counter a looming doctor shortage. Next, it wants to stretch its reach around the state.\nThe nation’s second-largest medical school plans to have students take clinical rotations at hospitals outside Indianapolis starting this fall. The school hopes to launch pilot rotations in South Bend and Fort Wayne and eventually expand to several other cities.\nThe move would help the medical school accommodate its larger class sizes – and it would expose students to parts of the state they might want to return to for work.\n“The students get to see the medicine that’s practiced there,” said Dr. Stephen Leapman, the school’s executive associate dean for educational affairs. “They may be turned on by it, may want to stay there, and the physicians that are there may see students ... and think of them as future partners.”\nHe said the rotations could help hospitals in rural counties or those located in poor, urban areas.\nIt can take three years to attract a primary care doctor to the 25-bed St. Vincent Jennings Hospital in southern Indiana’s North Vernon, administrator Joe Roche said.\nDoctors often have a hard time adjusting to a smaller hospital from a big medical center where they can refer their patients to a large roster of specialists.\n“In a rural community, you’re it,” Roche said. “There may be a handful of specialists, but not in every area.”\nHe said the expanded rotations could expose future doctors to the benefits of practicing in a smaller community. Physicians get to know patients and their families better than they do in a large community, and they receive a degree of respect that can get lost in big cities.\nLeapman said he hopes the medical school will eventually offer rotations in cities where it already operates satellite campuses. Those include Bloomington, Evansville, West Lafayette, Fort Wayne, Gary, Muncie, South Bend and Terre Haute.\nThey’d also like to build a presence in New Albany and Richmond. But the school will need a state funding increase to expand the rotations.\nStudents currently attend their first two years of medical school in Indianapolis or any of the eight current satellite locations. Then they return to Indianapolis for the rotations, which involve hospital work in several areas like surgery, pediatrics or family medicine.\nLeapman said expanding rotations outside Indianapolis could create “a win-win situation for everybody.”\nThe Association of American Medical Colleges has asked U.S. medical schools to increase enrollment 30 percent by 2015 to deal with a shortage from factors including population increases and an aging physician work force.