UAMS to Receive $15.8 Million if Bond Issue Approved

In the years to come, UAMS will play a key role as the state tries to make up an increasing shortage of health care professionals.

A favorable vote on the higher education bond program on Nov. 7 would help UAMS and other public colleges tackle this looming crisis, said UAMS Chancellor I. Dodd Wilson, M.D.

Arkansas, like the country, faces losing many of its health care professionals to retirement at the same time that other aging baby boomers and population growth begin placing unprecedented demands on our health care system.

UAMS is home to Arkansas’ only medical college, pharmacy college and Ph.D.-level nursing college, as well as numerous health education programs in the College of Health Related Professions.

“Although UAMS is uniquely positioned to take on this health care challenge, it can’t do it without additional classroom space and the assistance of the bond program,” Wilson said. “If voters approve this bond program, our first priority is to construct a new education building to accommodate increased enrollment.”

Medical schools across the country have been asked to increase their class size 30 percent to meet the expected demand for doctors. Similar challenges are faced by nursing, pharmacy and other allied health professions.

The nation already is burdened with a nursing shortage and Arkansas has one of the country’s lowest concentrations of nurses. Arkansas also ranked in the bottom third of states in 2000 for the number per capita of physical therapists, speech pathologists/audiologists and nuclear medicine technologists. The state had significantly fewer respiratory care therapists than the national rate and ranked last in the number of dieticians/nutritionists per capita.


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UAMS College of Medicine seniors Christy Bartlett (left) and Sarah Weston co-coordinated a golf tournament that raised more than $10,000 for the UAMS Safe from the Start car safety seat program.

UAMS Tests Internet Against Traditional Obesity Programs

A five-year study at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) will determine how a weight loss program delivered via the Internet stacks up against the most effective in-person programs delivered in group settings, such as Weight Watchers.

Overseen by Delia West, Ph.D., at the UAMS College of Public Health, researchers will track five waves of participants – 288 in all – for 18 months each before concluding in 2010. The $3.7 million study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, is being done in collaboration with the University of Vermont.

“The in-person behavioral weight loss program is our gold standard right now,” said West, director of the Interdisciplinary Obesity Program and professor in the college’s Department of Health Behavior and Health Education. “We know it works, and we know how it works. If we can demonstrate that the Internet has the same or even better results than in person, the opportunities for a rural state like Arkansas are tremendous.”

West said she hopes the study will provide a definitive answer one way or the other.

“Because the Internet has become so entrenched in people’s lives, many have assumed that it could be effective for a weight loss program,” West said. “If it turns out the Internet is not an effective way to help people with obesity, then we can focus on other methods of helping people lose weight.”

Obesity, along with tobacco use and a lack of exercise, is one of the leading causes of death and disability.

Each wave of participants is being randomly assigned to three groups. One group will become part of an in-person only weight control program; one group will attend in-person sessions as well as Internet sessions, and the third group will be served by only the Internet.

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