For the past 39 years, Michigan State University/Kalamazoo Center for Medical Studies has been training doctors, educating more than 700 medical students and 1,400 residents. Now that Western Michigan University is pursuing a medical school, MSU/KCMS has agreed to a merger.
MSU/KCMS operations, programs, personnel, and facilities will be wholly merged into and become part of the WMU School of Medicine. MSU/KCMS has more than 60 physician faculty members and nearly 500 community clinical faculty members who teach over 200 resident physicians and 50 medical students each year.
The merger is effective July 1. It comes after months of discussion involving WMU and the two community hospitals--Borgess Health and Bronson Healthcare--that operate the center and have provided third- and fourth-year medical education there since 1974 to MSU medical students.
The WMU School of Medicine will have an ongoing relationship with MSU's College of Osteopathic Medicine. And MSU students in the College of Human Medicine will continue their medical training in Kalamazoo through June 2014 under a transitional affiliation agreement.
The faculty and staff of KCMS become the core of the new medical school, says Dr. Hal B. Jenson, founding dean of WMU's new medical school. Many of the center's faculty and staff are already serving on WMU School of Medicine committees that are preparing documents for accreditation.
The current clinic operations, support staff, and faculty will remain at their current locations at 1000 Oakland Drive and the psychiatry clinic will remain on the Borgess campus. Some organizational leadership changes may require certain faculty or staff to be moved once the new WMU School of Medicine building is completed.
"This collaboration means Kalamazoo will now have the full continuum of medical education from medical school, residency training, and on into continuing medical education," says Scott Larson, MD, Bronson’s senior vice president for medical affairs and chief medical officer. He serves as the board’s vice chair.
Writer: Kathy Jennings, Second Wave
Source: Cheryl Roland, Western Michigan University
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