State Awards UB Medical School $500,000 to Support Primary-Care Training Efforts

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University at Buffalo has received a $500,000 grant from the New York State Department of Health to fund projects to encourage students to become primary-care physicians.

The grant will supplement programs already under way and financed through a $600,000, three-year grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Generalist Physician Initiative.

The state funds will be used to increase training opportunities for medical students in community offices and clinics, with community physicians trained as educators and role models as their teachers. Specific projects to be funded by the new grant are:

• Curriculum revision to integrate basic science and clinical education, introduce patient-centered learning in the first two years of medical school and shift third-year clerkships from hospitals to community settings.

• Expansion of the number of community academic-practice sites -- clinics, private offices and HMOs that are approved to function as medical-school teaching centers -- from 9 to 12.

• Workshops and seminars to help full-time and community-based faculty improve their teaching techniques and become better teachers and mentors.

• Two programs to increase exposure of medical students to primary-care physicians -- a paid summer externship program and a primary-care club that sponsors a variety of programs and offers chances to meet informally with primary-care physicians.

“This effort is a critical component of our comprehensive program to restructure the health-care delivery system to one emphasizing primary care,” Mark R. Chassin, New York State commissioner of health, said of the grant.

John P. Naughton, M.D., UB vice president for clinical affairs and dean of the medical school, said the school is proud to have competed successfully with the state’s other medical schools for the funds.

“The award reflects the quality of the effort that exists in Buffalo, and recognizes UB’s position as a leader in the needed effort to participate in health-care reform,” he said