THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, March 25, 1996 TAG: 9603220009
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 57 lines
Eastern Virginia Medical School is a youngster among the nation's 126 medical schools (a score are younger). Its first class - two-dozen students - was enrolled in 1973.
When Edward E. Brickell - who had been superintendent of Virginia Beach schools for 21 years - signed on as EVMS's president in 1988, applications for admission numbered 1,562. Last year, they totaled 7,354. The school admits 100 students a year.
The ballooning of applications is one measure of EVMS's progress. Andrew S. Fine, rector of the board of visitors of the Medical College of Hampton Roads, EVMS's governing body, cited the increase along with other milestones of the Brickell years when announcing recently the board's four-year extension of the president's contract.
The quality of leadership makes or breaks enterprises. EVMS's strategic plan, a product of the Brickell presidency, promises to strengthen the school's financial base. Two years into its five-year Campaign for the 21st Century, EVMS has obtained $22 million of the $62 million it aspires to raise.
Health care is in turmoil. Hospitals, physicians, medical technicians, patients and insurers are having to adjust to different ways of delivering and financing health-care services and to the graying of America. Medical schools must respond to the changing scene. EVMS has responded by stressing the training of primary-care physicians and moving to improve geriatric care.
Compared with the nation's long-established, highly prestigious medical schools, EVMS is modestly endowed. But its endowment has more than doubled since 1988, from $14.7 million to $30 million. Governmental and private-sector money for research has nearly doubled, from $11.7 million to $22 million.
Funding for research underwrites 17 percent of the school's $120 million budget, making it the second leading revenue source. Fees for patient care underwrite 50 percent; state funding, 10 percent; and funding from seven Hampton Roads cities and private sources, 3 percent. Tuition fees - $12,500 a year for in-state students, $22,000 for out-of-staters - underwrite 6 percent.
Like all other medical schools, EVMS looks to foundations and public-spirited individuals and businesses to supplement revenue from other sources. But unlike many older schools, EVMS is not in a region fat with blue-chip corporations that could assure its financial stability, nor does it have a large alumni pool to tap for contributions.
Despite these disadvantages, EVMS's gains are clear. Old Dominion University researchers last year reckoned the school's annual economic impact upon Hampton Roads at close to a half-billion dollars. Said Rector Fine: ``Dr. Brickell came to this medical school at a critical time in its history and helped create the momentum for it to progress.'' That's clear too. by CNB