Dear Colleagues,
Our Springfield Clinical Campus continues to do very well. I recently visited the medical school campus for a full day of activities and felt the excitement surrounding the many successes taking place in southwest Missouri.
I met with a number of our amazing volunteer faculty who practice medicine at the CoxHealth and Mercy Springfield health systems. There are about 350 physicians who are genuinely motivated to teach the next generation of physicians for Missouri, and they contribute their time and effort in so many ways to see our students thrive.
Our students see patients in the hospitals and clinics, assist in the operating rooms during surgeries and participate in research projects led by these doctors. In addition to our volunteer physician faculty (all of whom have appointments as faculty members in our School of Medicine), 13 physicians and a neuropsychologist are considered leaders of this group and are called associate clerkship directors.
When we opened the Springfield Clinical Campus in 2016, we asked for volunteers among the physicians at CoxHealth and Mercy who could serve as mentors in their specialty area. These clerkship directors spend a great deal of time with up to 56 third- and fourth-year medical students to ensure they get the training they need to learn when they are on rotations in areas such as family medicine, surgery, pediatrics, neurology and more.
Our Springfield Clinical Campus would not be a success without the wonderful and dedicated staff who carry out operations, led by Jill Wiggins, director of student services, and Dr. David Haustein, associate dean of the Springfield Clinical Campus. Together, they do an incredible job organizing student activities and rotations.
We could not have a Springfield Clinical Campus without the support of the community. It was great to speak with Ken McClure, mayor of Springfield; Matt Marrow, Chamber of Commerce president and CEO; Clif Smart, Missouri State University (MSU) president; Zora Mulligan, executive vice president of MSU; Max Buetow, CoxHealth CEO; Dr. Shawn Usery, senior vice president and chief medical officer at CoxHealth; and two key physician leaders at Mercy, Drs. David Merriman and Diane Lipscomb. While he could not be present, CEO of Mercy, David Argueta, recently visited with me in Columbia. He once again relayed Mercy’s continued and enthusiastic commitment to the Springfield Clinical Campus.
These community leaders are so pleased that the School of Medicine has a home in Springfield and are committed to bring community resources to the table to make us successful.
It was an honor to meet with seven of our medical school alumni in the region. I always like to give update to our alumni about their School of Medicine wherever I go. To end the day, I had pizza with a group of our third- and fourth-year medical students and heard their feedback on where we’re succeeding and where we could improve. I was pleased to hear them say that some of the best things about the Springfield Clinical Campus experience are Dean Haustein, Jill and their staff who are incredibly available and responsive.
Since we began the program seven years ago, we have graduated 95 doctors. To say the program is a success would be a big understatement. I am very proud of this tremendous program that will address so many health care needs in southern Missouri.
Sincerely,
Rick Barohn, MD
Executive Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs and Hugh E. and Sarah D. Stephenson Dean, School of Medicine
rbarohn@health.missouri.edu
