UH’s new College of Medicine continues making strides in community By Aminah Tannir
T
he College of Medicine has taken large strides in community health since it opened, but it’s also looking forward to quite a few milestones in the next four years. The first milestone would be moving and settling in its new home, an $80 million facility featuring research spaces and anatomy and simulation suites just off campus. The move will take place this summer. Its class size has increased from 30 to 60 students, and dean Dr. Stephen Spann said he hoped to reach the goal of recruiting a class of 120 students by 2024. Another big milestone the college aims to reach is full accreditation by January 2024. Accreditation is awarded by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education and is done in a three step process, Spann said. LCME’s preliminary accreditation was granted in
February 2020, and its provisional accreditation is set to be awarded sometime this June, according to the UHCM timeline. More growth in UHCM’s graduate medical education programs and residency programs, both in partnership with the family hospital HCA Houston Healthcare, is something Spann also wishes to see. Over the next few years, more projects are planned to roll out as well as the continuation of research into health disparities and determinants as part of UHCM’s commitment to improving community health in Houston. A new program called the Health Commons is currently in the works. Spann said this would be an organization that would aim to better integrate social and medical care. This initiative would have primary medical care providers, social care agencies and workers
and community leaders from Third Ward and East End and UHCM working together. “Because we know that social determinants of health are responsible for 80 percent of preventable illness, disease and death in our country, we want to address those early,” Spann said. “We want to find ways to do a better job of addressing those upstream to prevent downstream illness in the cost of care.” As for campus presence, Spann said UHCM already has quite a few collaborations with other UH colleges and hopes to see an expansion in these collaborations. The college lectures occasionally at the Honors College and will be interacting with business students in healthcare management courses. Undergraduate students also have the opportunity to enter research and clinical shadowing programs hosted by the school. Some future endeavors
regarding academics include a Bachelor of Arts and Medical Doctorate track, where undergraduate students will get guaranteed admission into the College if they meet academic standards, Spann said. With all of these programs looking to expand as UHCM grows, Spann said it’s a great institution to be a part of and it will ultimately grow into an exceptional medical school. “We’re still in the very early stages but I think we’re seeing success,” Spann said. “I think we’ve got a great group of medical students, great faculty, great facilities and great support from the University. So I think it’s going to continue to be an upward trajectory.”
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