Indiana medical school cuts number of students amid budget cuts

The Louisville Courier-Journal: "Facing a $7 million budget cut, the Indiana University School of Medicine plans to reduce the number of new students next year -- a move that will save money but could reduce the number of physicians when the state is already facing a shortage. After several years of ramping up acceptances of new medical students, IU was forced to cut back after Gov. Mitch Daniels recently ordered state-funded universities to reduce their budgets, said Dr. D. Craig Brater, dean of the school. The governor said the university decided what would be cut. Indiana is one of only a handful of states -- the others include Utah and California -- where medical schools have reduced enrollment in response to state budget cuts" (McFeely, 2/3). 

South Bend Tribune: The medical school cuts would have ended a program that sends students in their last two years to regional medical campuses. But "area hospitals and physician groups have stepped forward to ensure that third- and fourth-year medical school training will continue in South Bend. ... Local hospitals and physician groups have agreed to contribute the financial support — about $100,000 a year — for the next few years to keep the upperclassmen training," said Dr. Rudy Navari, assistant dean and director of the IU medical program in South Bend (Fosmoe, 2/4).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.