McKeithen Assures Support for Medical College Here

              To Large Local Delegation Shreveport Times
May 20, 1965 McKeithen Assures Support
For Medical College Here
By HILL LYNCH
Times Legislative Correspondent
BATON ROUGE — Gov. .John
McKeithen Tuesday assured a
large delegation of Shreveporters
thai his administration will sup-port
a proposed medical college
for" the city.
The governor predicted at a
breakfast for ihc group, which
flew to Baton Rouse early yester-day,
that 1 ho funds probably
would he made available within
two or three years to finance the
initial $5 million cost.
A bill establishing the college
as a branch of the Louisiana
State University Medical School
was taken under advisement , by
the House Appropriations Com-mittee
which heard testimony
from the delegation.
Hop. J. Bennett Johnston Jr.
of Caddo Parish predicted pas-sage
of the bill by the commit-tee,
which amended out a $10,-
000 appropriation for conducting
a survey on the needs.
Johnston said that the governor
had expressed his support for
the bill, which is designed to
lay the groundwork for planning
on the college.
"We are for it," Gov. Me-
Keithen told the delegation at the
mansion. "And we will build it
for you."
HASTENS TO ADD
However, the chief executive
hastened to add that he dicln't
know how much longer the state
cin continue to add new facili-ties
and services without finding
new sources of revenue.
The proposed college would
cost $5 million to construct, with
the state providing about $2 mil-lion
and the federal government
the remainder. Operating costs
"ere estimated at $1 million a
year.
The college would be located
at the rear of Confederate Me-morial
Medical Center on the site
of the once-planned postgraduate
college. The foundation had been
laid at a cost of $100,000 for the
postgraduate college but con-struction
money was later with-drawn
by Gov. Earl Long.
Speakers on behalf of the
Shreveport delegation, which in-cluded
a large number of doc-tors
and Chamber of Commerce
officials, who sponsored the trip,
included Dr. Edgar Hull, associ-ate
dean of the LSU Medical
School; Or. J. E. Holoubek,
Shreveport Medical Society; for-mer
Rep. Wellborn .Jack; F. H.
Delaney, assistant to the presi-dent
at Centenary College; Rep.
Algie Brown: and Rep. Johnston.
Action on the bill is expected to
come from the House Appropri-ations
Committee today.
The House, in separate action,
defeated a bid by Rep. Lawrence
Gibbs of Ouachita to override an
unfavorable report by the ap-propriations
committee on a bill
to build a medical college in the
Monroe area.
Gibbs had cited the presence
of a school of pharmacy and
Mining school at Northeast State
College and hospital facilities as
support for the college.
However, the House voted 15 to
63 against Gibbs.
In his presentation to the ap-propriations
committee. Dr. Hull
said, "there is no question of the
need."
NO MONEY QUESTION
The question of money is no
longer a problem at the present
LSU Medical School, the associ-ate
dean said.
"There is no doubt that there
is a need at this time for an-other
medical school in this
state," Dr. Hull continued. "We
are now turning down qualified
applicants. We turned down 70
students who would have been
accepted.
"Shreveport already has all
the medical facilities necessary
for a first class medical school,"
he said.
Dr. Hull said that Confederate
Memorial Medical Center has
half Che facilities of Charity Hos-pital
in New Orleans for support-ing
a medical school and the
latter supports both Tulane and
LSU medical schools.
Dr. Holoubek presented a re-port
from the committee for the
development of a graduate med-ical
school from the Shreveport
Medical Society.
He noted that a $2 million ap-propriation
to build such a school
had been granted in 1955 but in
1958 was withdrawn even after a
contract to construct it had been
let.
Subsequently, he said a report
was drafted by the medical so-ciety
tracing steps taken to study
the situation. The medical com-niittee
came up with the follow-ing
recommendations:
J. There is at present a need
for an undergraduate medical
school in Shreveport. Qualified
students are being turned down
because of a lack of facilities in
the two existing medical schools
in the state. This condition will
become progressively worse.
TEACHING STAFF
2. The staff of the Confederate
Memorial Medical Center which;
is organized for the postgraduate
medicine of the Louisiana State
Medical School is organized and
qualified to carry on as a nu-cleus
of the clinical teaching
staff of the medical school.
3. The foundations of a build-ing
are already laid and could
be adapted to a medical school
building.
The report further said, "since
a medical school will be neces-sary
within the next five years,
and critical in 10 years, we feel
that the logical place for the new
medical school is in Shreveport.
"In Shreveport we have a 1,000
bed charity hospital with a well-
Organized staff of 209 part-time
staff physicians, with 14 full-time
physicians in the department of
medicine, radiology, anesthesiol-ogy,
psychiatry, and pathology,
with two part-time physicians in
pediatrics and chest surgery, who
at present are doing clinical
teaching, and the facilities will be
available for adequate training of
medical students."
Dr. Holoubek warned that there
is an exodus of prospective stu-dents
to medical schools, in ottier
stales and that once they leave
they do not come back.
CRYING NEED
"There is a crying need for
more doctors and this is one way
of getting them," he said.
Rep. Johnston told the Appro-priations
Committee that the gov.
ernor had expressed support.
"We realize that the money is
not available now," Johnston
said. "All this does is create and
establish."
He said it will take two or three
years to get the planning down
In having the appropriation re
moved from the bill, Johnston
told the committee that the med
ical society and other interested
groups would finance preliminary
study and planning.
Former Rep. Jack said that
there is very little chance of get
ting into medical school.
"I want to see the boys am
girls net their chance," Jack said
j"Wc need more expansion so we
can take on more students."
Delaney presented a letter to
the committee from Dr. Mary
Waiters, head of the Centenary
College biology department, who
has worked with premedical stu-dents
as an adviser.
"Having served in the capacity
of the premedical adviser at Cen-tenary
College for a number of
years," she said, "I am well
aware of the critical need for an
additional medical school in Loui-siana
and I believe that Shreve-port
can best offer the necessary
facilities."
DISCOURAGING REPORTS
Dr. Warters said that she has
had discouraging reports from
schools of medicine about enroll-ment
prospects.
"At a time when the national
crisis involving a shortage of doc-tors
is steadily worsening can we
in Louisiana afford to turn away
those students whose potentiali-ties
and motivations best qualify
them for the medical profes-sion'.'"
she asked.
Rep. Biown said, "nerhaps a
Shreveport location will be the
most economical to operate once
the school is established. The
Shreveport Medical Society has
already set up the faculty."
Adding their names to bill as
coauthors were Reps. Brown and
Frank Fulco of Caddo Parish,
Parey Branton of Webster Par-ish,
Ford Stinson of Bossier, Joe
Cooper of DeSoto Parish, and
Sens. Jackson B. Davis of Shreve-port
and B. H. Rogers of Grand
Cane.
Rep. Johnston said after the
hearing that he was "tremendous-ly
happy" with the appearance
of the delegation and the response
from the governor and the com-mittee.
He said that the Chamber of
Commerce was to be commended
for turning out in support of the
measure.