August 9, 2007

IU School of Medicine Takes Aim at Physician Shortage with Increased Enrollment

INDIANAPOLIS — The class of 2011, the largest to enter the Indiana University School of Medicine in 25 years, will assemble in Indianapolis Saturday for the annual White Coat Ceremony, an event that blends the passion and enthusiasm of first-year student physicians with the time-honored traditions of the profession.

Friends and family members will gather at 3 p.m. at Murat Theatre, 502 N. New Jersey St., for the ceremony. At that time, each medical student will be given their first white physician’s coat and then, in unison, will repeat the physician's oath pledging to care for as well as cure patients.

This year's entering class has 294 future physicians, an increase of 14 students, in response to projected physician shortages in the state and the nation. An IU School of Medicine task force predicted that if more physicians are not educated, the state would have a shortage of 1,975 doctors by 2015.

Also, the Association of American Medical Colleges recommended in June 2006, a 30 percent increase in medical student enrollment nationwide over the next 10 years, which would add nearly 5,000 medical students annually by 2015.

The IU task force said the school must start making the necessary preparations now to expand enrollment, consider incentives to populate medically underserved areas, and urge the Indiana General Assembly to provide the necessary funding to carry out these initiatives. The goal of IU medical school administrators is to increase enrollment by 30 percent over a six-year period. When the Class of 2016 graduates, the IU School of Medicine will contribute 360 new physicians annually to the health-care profession.

Six of the additional students are assigned to the IU School of Medicine – Muncie program and eight will attend the IU School of Medicine – Terre Haute campus, where accommodations have been made for the increased class size.

In the next few years, the other IU School of Medicine programs in Evansville, Fort Wayne, Indianapolis Northwest-Gary, South Bend and West Lafayette also will be expanded.

At Saturday's White Coat Ceremony, Richard Gunderman, M.D., Ph.D., MPH, associate professor of radiology, pediatrics and liberal arts, will deliver the 2007 address, welcoming the students to the profession of medicine. His address will draw from his latest book, We Make a Life by What We Give, which will be published by Indiana University Press in December.

The IU School of Medicine, the only medical school in the state, educates students at nine centers across the state for the first two years of its four- to six-year program. The final two to four years are spent at the Indianapolis campus where students participate in class work, research and rotate through the various clinical programs.

The White Coat Ceremony caps a two-day orientation for new medical students at the IU School of Medicine campus in Indianapolis.

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Media Contact:

Mary Hardin
(317) 274-7722
(317) 695-4090 (cell)
mhardin@iupui.edu