Dreams, Work, Building Shreveport Medical School

              THE TULSA TRIBUNE, TULSA, OKLAHOMA WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 18, 1971 3 B
Dreams, work, building Shreveport medical school
By JOHN DRUMMOND
Tribune Associate Editor SHREVEPORT — This
city, Louisiana's sec-ond
largest, shares a
number of interests with
Tulsa — oil, a v i a t i o n ,
river navigation and a
reputation as a clean,
beautiful city.
But while it isn't as big as
Tulsa (about 180,000 popu-lation,
compared with Tulsa's
332,000), Shreveport achieved
an important milestone Tues-day,
one that Tulsa has yet to
attain:
Louisiana State University
opened bids for construction of
a permanent home for the LSU
Medical School at Shreveport,
a complex of buildings ex-pected
to cost about $30.5 mil-lion.
The Tulsa County Medical
Society and Tulsa Chamber of
Commerce have been working
for several years toward es-tablishment
of a medical
school. But they will have to go
some to meet the rapid time-table
which has been achieved
at Shreveport.
The Shreveport school has
been in operation in temporary
the philosophy of medical edu-cation
which the proposed
school in Shreveport should
follow, on design and construc-tion,
and on solicitation of
grants and endowments from
influential citizens.
Thus a number of doctors
were put to work on the proj-ect.
Many other Shreveport
citizens were enlisted in active
participation and sufficient
publicity was generated to
keep the idea of a medical
school before the public eye.
Holoubek has compiled a thick
scrapbook of newspaper clip-pings
dealing with the pro-posed
medical school.
One of the more significant
committees was the one which
surveyed pre-med students in
10 Louisiana colleges and uni-versities.
The Committee re-port
showed 1,212 pre-med stu-dents
then enroled (in the 1963-
64 school year). By 1970, these
same schools estimated, the
number would have risen to 1,-
849 and by 1975, to 2,345.
The study indicated the po-tential
number of pre-med
graduates would far exceed
the capacities of Louisiana's
existing medical schools, LSU
and Tulane, both at New Or-leans.
Other committees provided
speakers for Shreveport civic
groups and established liaison
with various regional, state and
national medical organiza-tions
and the LSU Alumni As-sociation.
The first goal, Holoubek re-calls,
was to regain the money
which had been authorized,
then withdrawn, for construc-tion
of a postgraduate medical
school in the mid '50s. "We
wanted our $2 million back.
But after a Shreveport delega-tion
had been to New Orleans
to study the LSU Medical
School there, the decision was
made to seek $10 million.
THE FIRST legislation,
passed in 1965, sim-ply
a u t h o r i z e d the
Shreveport school. "No
money, no nothing,"
Holoubek said. Then the
c a m p a i g n began in
earnest to get the money.
"We asked for the help of
LSU grads throughout the
state — the family doctors of
every legislator — to bring out
the need for more doctors, to
show the legislators the statis-tics."
By that time, the dean and
associate dean of the LSU Me-dical
School at New Orleans
favored the Shreveport proj-ect.
But many officials of the
LSU system in Baton Rouge
were opposed. So the Shreve-port
planners invited the presi-dent
and other university offi-cials
to inspect facilities of
Confederate Memorial Medical
Center.
DR. GEORGE MENEELY
quarters in the 452-bed Ve-terans
Administration Hospital
since 1969. It admitted 32 new
students each of its first two
years and 40 more will begin
classes next month.
Permanent buildings for the
medical school, scheduled for
completion in 1975, will be ad-jacent
to the 755-bed Confeder-ate
Memorial Medical Center,
owned by the state of Loui-siana.
When the school moves
to its permanent home, class
size, will be increased to 100,
about average for the nation's
medical schools, although a
few have gone as high as 200
or more in recent years.
This year's budget for the
school is about $2.5 million.
INNOVATE
Robert Graves, medical school
business manager, has esti-mated
that by the 1979-80 fis-cal
year the school will have
over 700 fulltime employes and
a budget of $13 million, thus
making it an important con-tributor
to Shrevcport's econ-omy
as well as to its health.
The presence of the VA and
Confederate hospitals has giv-en
Shreveport decided ad-vantages
in getting a state me-dical
school and getting it
quickly. But more will be said
about these advantages later.
Dr. Joe E. Holoubek, a
Shreveport physician who has
played a major role in estab-lishment
of the school, might
not agree entirely with the use
of the word "quickly" in de-scribing
the process.
He recalls that as early as
1950, when he was president of
the Fourth District Medical
Society (a regional group) he
wrote a letter proposing a me-dical
school here. And in 1956,
a $2 million appropriation was
obtained for a postgraduate
medical school in Shreveport.
But a new governor was in-augurated
soon after, and the
plan was killed. Still, despite
t h o s e e a r l y frustrations,
"quickly" is the right word
when you trace the story from
1963 to the opening of classes
in 1969.
THE Shreveport Medi-cal
Society formed
its Study Committee for
the Development of a
Medical School in Shreve-port,
with Holoubek as
chairman, in 1963.
Holoubek mobilized his fel-low
doctors in a series of com-mittees.
First, they obtained
support from medical societies
in such surrounding cities as
El Dorado, Ark., and Texar-kana,
Marshall and Long-view,
Tex.
Then, in the summer of 1964,
m e m b e r s of the Medical
S c h o o l Survey Committee,
traveling at their own expense,
visited medical schools in a
dozen states studying curricu-lum,
design and construction,
and discussing problems of op-erating
a medical school.
Other committees focused on
After that visit, the univer-sity
officials "agreed to run it
(a medical school) if we got
it," Holoubek said.
When the $10 million bond
proposal came to a vote in the
1966 session of the Legislature,
the Shreveport doctors had or-ganized
their campaign so well
that the issue passed the
House 105-0 and the Senate 49-
1.
Of course the need for more
doctors was the biggest selling
point. And the availability of
hospital beds in Shreveport
made it the logical location.
(Baton Rouge, the state capi-tal
and third largest city, has
only about half as many hospi-tal
beds.)
A September 1970 survey by
the Shreveport Chamber of
Commerce listed 2,888 hospital
beds in the Shreveport area.
Of this total, 2,001 were in sev-en
Shreveport hospitals open
to the general public. (This
compares with 2,100 in five
Tulsa hospitals).
Shreveport's biggest advan-tage
as the location for a new
medical school — as compared
with Tulsa, for example — is
that its largest hospital, Con-federate
Memorial, is state
owned and operated.
Land for the medical school
was provided from the hospital
grounds, and the hospital itself
may eventually become the
property of LSU.
Any medical school must
have a teaching hospital. And
if a new hospital must be built,
it can cost almost as much as
the school itself. Tulsa un-doubtedly
has adequate hospi-tal
facilites to support a me-dical
school, but all are pri-vately
owned and operated.
This complicates, but does
not rule out, a state medical
school. Obviously agreement is
easier between a state school
and hospital than between a
state school and a private hos-pital.
But Tulsa has made a begin-ning,
of sorts. Its three largest
hospitals, St. Francis, St.
John's and Hillcrest, cooperate
with the OU Medical School at
Oklahoma City in internship
and residency programs. And
a coordinated effort is being
made to expand medical edu-cation
in Tulsa. This could
lead to one or more of these
hospitals serving, eventually,
as a teaching hospital for a
new medical school.
AFTER the Shreveport
medical school had
c l e a r e d its legislative
hurdles, work began im-mediately
on assembling
a faculty and developing
a curriculum.
Dr. George R. Meneely, a
member of the LSU New Or-
DR. EDGAR HULL
leans faculty, was named coor-1
dinator for development of
plans and programs and sub-sequently
was designated asso-ciate
dean at Shreveport.
Dr. Edgar Hull, associate
dean of the LSU Medical
School at New Orleans, be-came
dean at Shreveport. He
had been a charter member of
the faculty when the New Or-leans
school was established 35
years earlier.
Meneely, who previously
was with the University of
Texas M. D. Anderson Tumor
Institue at Houston and served
as assistant to the dean of the
Vanderbilt University School
of Medicine, Nashville, Tenn.,
has an extensive background
in the development of labora-tories,
research and teaching
facilities.
At Shreveport, he assumed
responsibilities for dealing
w i t h accreditation, federal
f u n d i n g and architectural
plans for the new school. All
these hinged on the devel-opment
of the school's basic
policies.
He recalls that the decision
was made that the school
should follow a "classical"
pattern of medical education
as opposed to some innovative
pattern. And this created im-mediate
problems in obtaining
federal matching funds. For
the responsible federal offi-cials
at that time placed a
high premium on innovation.
But Meneely argues that a
new medical school is one of
the worst places for innova-tion;
it is several years after
the first students have gradua-ted
before there is clear evi-dence
whether the innovations
have raised or lowered the
quality of doctors produced.
The Shreveport school stuck
by its traditional philosophy,
and there were changes in the
outlook of federal officialdom.
Last year the crucial construc-tion
funds, more than $20 mil-lion,
were forthcoming, match-ing
the state funds 2 for 1.
The "classical" pattern
hasn't blinded the new school
to all experimentation, how-ever.
One of the new buildings
to be constructed will be a
"Comprehensive Care Cen-ter,"
where third and fourth
year medical students will
spend 20 per cent of their time
seeing a variety of patients
(but not acute surgical cases)
in individual offices, much as
they will later in private prac-tice.
"The center will replicate
the experience of the private
doctor with elementary labora-tory
and equipment facilities,"
Meneely said.
PIE medical students
also will spend about
20 per cent of their time
in the hospital's out-patient
clinic.
Work in the Comprehensive
Care Center will relate to that
in the out-patient clinic rough-ly
as that of a general prac-titioner
relates to that of a
specialist, Meneely explained.
Another innovative program,
u n d e r t a k e n on an ex-perimental
basis with the aid
of a federal grant, is de-signed
to speed the production
of physicians by telescoping
eight years of college and me-dical
school into six years.
Those chosen will complete
their undergraduate work in
two full school years plus
three summers. The medical
school curriculum will contin-ue
to cover four years.
Dr. William T. McElroy, as-sistant
dean, explains that this
program, in conjunction with
Louisiana State University in
Shreveport, a two-year state
school, is limited to seven stu-dents
in this, its first year. If
t h e y successfully complete
their undergraduate work,
they will enter the medical
school in 1973. Those selected,
McElroy said, are generally
class valedictorians. straight-A
students with high ACT scores
— very mature and highly
motivated.
One of Meneely's contribu-tions
during the planning of
the new medical school aided
in its prompt opening. This
was the agreement with the
Veterans Administration to use
the Shreveport VA Hospital as
temporary home for the new
school.
"Where a medical school Is
available," he said, "the VA
seeks to affiliate with it. The
VA probably won't build any
new hospitals except adjacent
to medical schools. It has a
severe problem in getting staff
members of adequate caliber
where its hospitals are free-standing
(not affiliated with
medical schools)," he said.
While LSU's occupancy of
space in the VA Hospital is
temporary, a number of LSU
faculty members probably will
remain there to take advan-tage
of laboratory facilities
even after the school moves
across town to Confederate
Memorial, Meneely said.
How good will the graduates
of the LSU Medical School at
Shreveport be? The dedication
and enthusiasm of adminis-trators
such as Meneely and
McElroy and the support of
Shreveport doctors s u c h as
Holoubek suggest that an opti-mistic
prognosis is in order.
"We are able to choose the
top students from throughout
the state," McElroy says.
"The first year, the grade
point average of entering stu-dents
was 3.3; the second year,
3.4. This year it is close to 3.6.
"We've got boys who had of-fers
from six, seven or eight
s c h o o l s . We offer small
classes, new facilities, a top
faculty."
It sounds like a winning
combination.
NEW MEDICAL SCHOOL—This drawing shows the new
LSU Medical School (I) as it will be built adjoining the exist-ing
Confederate Memorial Medical Center (2) and school of
nursing (3). An addition to the hospital's out-patient clinic (4)
is being built to accommodate the medical school. The tallest
portion of the new medical school is an 11-story basic science,
administration and research building.