Hofstra announces plans for medical school

This is pretty cool, looks like we will have another medical school on Long Island soon.

Medical school in the works at Hofstra
BY OLIVIA WINSLOW | [email protected]
10:03 PM EDT, October 15, 2007

Hofstra University and North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System are set to announce Tuesday that they are moving ahead with plans to establish a medical school on Hofstra's campus in Hempstead, which both institutions have previously said they were studying.

Terry Lynam, a spokesman for the hospital system, said, "We have approved a letter of intent to partner with Hofstra" on creating the medical school. He said the hospital's board of trustees has approved the action. Lynam declined to discuss details of the partnership Monday.

The university issued a statement Monday about the decision to move forward with the medical school but a university spokesman would not release details, saying that would come at a news conference scheduled Tuesday afternoon at the Hofstra University Club.

Hofstra president Stuart Rabinowitz and North Shore-LIJ's president and chief executive Michael J. Dowling are to appear at the news conference to provide details of the partnership.

Hofstra's would become the third medical school on Long Island, joining Stony Brook University School of Medicine and New York Institute of Technology's College of Osteopathic Medicine in Old Westbury.

Rabinowitz, in an interview in late August, said Hofstra's interest in opening a medical school was prompted by a June 2006 report from the Association of American Medical Colleges that recommended enrollment in medical colleges be increased by 30 percent by 2015, to stave off a predicted shortfall in doctors. The report also called for an increase in schools teaching allopathic, ortraditional, medicine. There are 125 allopathic and 23 osteopathic medical schools nationwide.

Rabinowitz and a spokesman for North Shore said in August that their respective institutions were in the midst of a feasibility study about establishing a medical school, and that the boards of trustees of both institutions would decide whether to go forward.

Re: Hofstra announces plans for medical school

Hofstra has a Physician Assistant program right now.