Noreen M. Carrocci, Garold Minns and Jon Rosell: Be proud of medical training

Sometimes you have to leave to discover what you left behind.

Recently, a group of Wichita business and community leaders traveled to Austin on a visit organized by the Wichita Metro Chamber of Commerce. The purpose of the trip was to discover the secret of Austin’s success in its explosive economic growth and ability to attract and retain young professionals.

Those of us who attended were struck by a common theme: Every politician, chamber official and business leader we met was very enthusiastic about the new University of Texas-Austin Dell Medical School, which will admit students beginning in 2016. These leaders know the economic, research and health care benefits such an institution will bring to their community.

Our community has had a medical school since 1973, but this immensely valuable resource is often overlooked by our own local officials and leaders.

We should be better champions of the tremendous contributions the University of Kansas School of Medicine-Wichita, the KU School of Pharmacy, Wichita State University’s College of Health Professions, Newman University’s pre-med and nursing and allied health programs, Via Christi Health and Wesley Medical Center make to our economy and our quality of life.

Health care is second only to aviation in the economic impact on our local economy. The medical school alone accounts for $47 million, according to the WSU Center of Economic Development and Business Research. And that calculation was made before the school expanded to a four-year program in 2010.

Not only do our local institutions’ medical programs attract the best and brightest young people, they also help to keep them in Kansas. Nearly half of the graduates of the KU School of Medicine-Wichita remain in the state. That percentage increases to 65 percent of those who do their residency training in Kansas.

Add to that the impact of 13 residency programs run by the medical school in concert with the hospitals (with all the physicians and their families they bring to the area), and the contributions of the 900 volunteer physician faculty members associated with medical education.

All three universities and two major hospitals work in close partnership to train tomorrow’s medical professionals and improve the quality of life and health care for Wichita and all of Kansas.

We’re proud of what we have accomplished together. We’d like you to be, too.

This story was originally published October 9, 2014 at 7:02 PM with the headline "Noreen M. Carrocci, Garold Minns and Jon Rosell: Be proud of medical training."