Research vital to med school's future, Bernardino tells PSS

By LOIS BAKER
News Services Editor

Research and biotechnology will dominate the future of the medical school and the other health sciences at UB, Michael Bernardino, vice president for health affairs, told the Professional Staff Senate at its Feb. 11 meeting.

"The growth of UB's Health Science Center is not on the clinical side, but on the research side," he told the group meeting in the Lippschutz Conference Room on the South Campus. "If we intend to get good, quality faculty, we have to be acknowledged as a site where faculty are nurtured."

As a consequence, he said the money that has been allocated for a Clinical Health Sciences Education Center, CHSEC, will be rechanneled to focus on this mission, with emphasis on gaining national and international standing in four research areas. Pediatrics, along with cancer-in partnership with Roswell Park-are two natural choices, he noted, with three or four other ideas being considered for the remaining two slots.

The goal is to increase research dollars by $25 million within five years, to rehabilitate 20 laboratories per year and bring in scientists to work in them, he said.

"With the NIH (National Institutes of Health) doubling its resources for medical research, we also will have to double our research effort."

To position itself for this challenge, the medical school is revamping its central and departmental administrations and reassessing its buildings and accounting principals and practices, he said. "To be a better-rated school, we need to use our resources in a strategic manner."

A major item on this agenda is updating the physicians' clinical practice plan- "bringing it into the 20th century," Bernardino noted. In response to a question concerning the time frame for the reva
g, he said some changes will happen quickly, others will take longer.

All departments within the medical school are converting to a common corporate structure, and a central accounting service with departmental lockboxes is being set up, both of which should be completed by the end of 1999, he said. But setting up billing and collections services will take longer.

"We're not sure we know what the statutes mean in this health-care environment," he noted, pointing out that the clinical practice plan was established by SUNY before the advent of managed care, and that its dominance now may require statute changes.

Speaking briefly about the university's relationship with its teaching hospitals, Bernardino reported that UB and Roswell Park have been working very closely, recruiting and hiring jointly in some cases, and capitalizing on each other's strengths to bring in faculty and grant support.

The challenge, he said, will be to convince all the hospitals to view UB as a partner, rather than as a competitor. "That (competitive) approach does not serve the community well," Bernardino said.