An
eight-year “Leadership in Medicine” program has
been approved by the faculty of Union and the Albany
Medical College.
The program will replace the existing
seven-year medical education program offered by the two
colleges. The new program will offer students the
opportunity to earn a bachelor's degree, a master of
science in health management, and a medical degree in
eight years.
It will be the first joint-degree
program in the country designed to produce physicians
educated to meet the challenges of managed care,
according to Professor of Philosophy Robert Baker, who
chaired the committee that designed the new program.
As with the current program, students
apply and are admitted to both colleges in their senior
year of secondary school. With the Leadership in Medicine
program, they will spend their first four years at Union,
where they take thirty courses — fifteen science,
fifteen non-science. In addition to completing normal
undergraduate work leading to a B.S., they will complete
an interdepartmental major in the humanities or social
sciences, a special program in bioethics supplemented by
a health services practicum, a term abroad, and a program
in health care management at the College's Graduate
Management Institute.
Students who successfully complete the
program at Union will receive a B.S. degree in
biology/chemistry and an M.S. in health care
administration. They will automatically be admitted to
Albany Medical College provided they have a 3.4 grade
point average and have demonstrated the commitment
necessary to becoming a physician.
The seven-year medical education
program has had about twenty students a year. Students
currently in the program will finish it, with the
eight-year Leadership in Medicine program to start in the
fall of 1999.