Recently heard that Wayne state lost its contract with DMC and MSU has signed a new contract with DMC. This would limit the Wayne state students to very few hospitals that are not with DMC? Is this true, has anyone else heard this and how will it impact the new applicants?
Ok, so I'm gonna weigh in on the situation, becuse this was a huge issue in my decision to attend Wayne next year. I have spent a lot of time talking to current and former med-students and residents as well as watching the news closely to try and find out exactly what is going on with Wayne/DMC relationship. Sorry about turning my response into a novel, but I thought all of this info was important when I was deciding where to go and there was no single source that I was able to gather it from. (2nd paragraph answers that original question) I eventually settled on the fact that although I may have to deal with some additional headaches from a strained relationship with the DMC, the quality of clinical education at Wayne will be fine regardless, so I will be attending next fall.
First off I am going to say that the Wayne DMC relationship is strained. The root of the problem is that DMC is a hospital as well as a business, but as a hospital that serves a largely poor uninsured population making money can be difficult. Wayne State is an academic medical instituion, and as a school its primary goals are research and education oriented and not neccisarily towards making money. With these conflicting goals there are certainly issues between the DMC and Wayne that leave some doubt about the stability of the school. Even if Wayne were to lose the DMC as a partner, Wayne still has relationships with many other hospitals in the area to send students to (Henry Ford, Beaumont, St. Johns, etc.) However, there is bound to be some uncertainty over the next few years regardless. To give you a better idea of the feelings - all of the signs and logos, etc used to say DMC/Wayne State - they now say only DMC.
Now regarding the MSU med students, the MSU Osteopath school is going to open a campus at the DMC in 2009. They're planning on putting 50 students there - some think that this may add to the problem, as Wayne is pissed about this, and I've gotten the impression that DMC CEO Mike Duggan is allowing MSU to come in, as a way to tell Wayne that they don't need them.
The situation with the DMC is getting worse not better. Recently, the DMC just forced the laying off of a bunch of Wayne people with some shady moves. The politics of all this make the working environment in the DMC hospitals a little stressful - the residents and students are feeling the effects, by losing call rooms, etc. An unexpected result is the quality of the residents training here - using Surgery as an example, they had to scrape the bottom of the barrel last year to fill the intern class, they think that this is due to the DMC/Wayne uncertainty. That affects med-students because a bad intern just means a lot more work for the student. (For more info read these articles
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080605/BUSINESS06/806050340/1019 and
http://crainsdetroit.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080609/SUB/806090302/1069)
Lastly, as a result of an uncertain relationship the University is looking to solidify there relationships with various hospitals. One way of doing this is to sign contracts that gaurantee med-students rotate at a certain location for a certain amount of time. So starting in 2009 all 3rd year rotations will be done at a single hospital. I personally find drawbacks in this because many students chose Wayne specifically for the urban medicine aspect and may get stuck in the suburbs for their entire 3rd year. Similarly you will only see things done one way at one hospital. Each hospital offers very different atmospheres and methods, which is valuable when it comes to choosing where to do a residency.
So when all was said and done. Wayne is a good school that offers great training, but there is some uncertainty in the future.
