SEPT. 27, 2004 | Chancellor I. Dodd Wilson, M.D., proclaimed the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) healthy and ready for the challenge of building a replacement for its 50-year-old hospital during his annual state of the campus speech Tuesday.

Buoyed by solid financial statements, an increase in student enrollment, growing numbers of federal research grants and a reputation that draws patients from every state in the nation and 34 foreign countries, UAMS is fiscally ready to commit to plans for a replacement hospital, he said.

Perhaps more importantly, the old University Hospital building is 50 years old and becoming outdated as it sits alongside the Ward Tower and some of UAMS’ newer centers of excellence, from the Arkansas Cancer Research Center (ACRC) to the Donald W. Reynolds Center on Aging to the Harvey & Bernice Jones Eye Institute to the Jackson T. Stephens Spine and Neurosciences Institute.

“Why would you have all these wonderful facilities and a 50-year-old hospital?” Wilson asked, adding that “the hospital replacement is needed to meet the needs of the world-class programs we have. The critical time is now because these programs will deteriorate without expansion and replacement.”

The University of Arkansas Board of Trustees approved plans in August for the new hospital, which will be located near the current student dormitory. Construction is expected to be finished in about four years. The hospital project is part of a larger campus expansion that will include construction of a psychiatry center and in-patient unit, expansions of the Outpatient Center and Jones Eye Institute, a new student dormitory and an additional parking deck and physical plant.

The existing UAMS hospital will continue to be used even after a new facility is built. The freed-up space might allow some programs and offices that are housed off campus to move back, he said.

Wilson illustrated the growth of the UAMS campus through an animated graphic of the campus in 1984 with a time lapse that showed the roughly 4 million square feet in new facilities built over the 20-year period.

“Think about what we’ve done in the last 20 years and think about where we’d be if we didn’t have (these facilities),” Wilson said. “What we really need to think about now is what we need to be like in the next 20 years.”

The UAMS chancellor touched on many of the past year’s highlights during the state of the campus address to faculty, staff and employees in the Pauly Auditorium in the College of Public Health building. He touted larger student enrollment, the accomplishments of faculty and staff, more funds for research, and expanded services for patients and the community as well as high marks in patient and employee satisfaction.

In the past year, the work and accomplishments of both UAMS and many of its faculty members garnered acclaim in local and national media. U.S. News and World Report again placed the geriatrics program among the best in the nation while UAMS was also named among “the Best Wired” for its information systems.

Bart Barlogie, M.D., Ph.D., professor of medicine and pathology in the College of Medicine, received a lifetime achievement award from the International Myeloma Foundation for his 30 years of work, Wilson noted. Barlogie also recently received an almost $18 million grant from the National Cancer Institute – the largest in UAMS history – to fund ongoing research.

Federal grants and contracts are a barometer Wilson used to measure success – an amount that grew from about $6 million in 1984 to about $106 million today. Funding to the College of Medicine at UAMS from the National Institutes of Health has jumped from about $2.5 million in 1983 to about $40 million in 2003.

“Funding for the College of Medicine from the NIH has doubled every five years for the last 20 years,” Wilson said. “No other institution in the country has had that growth rate, and it’s a credit to the individuals receiving these grants and the people they work with.”

The commitment of UAMS to serve its statewide community was evident in the past year through numerous programs and events, Wilson said. Free health screenings, continuing education courses and other UAMS programs made available across Arkansas targeted health problems such as childhood obesity, strived to improve the lives of seniors and provided an educational resource for the state’s health care professionals.

The success of the education mission at UAMS showed in increased student enrollment, the chancellor said. With the exception of the College of Medicine, whose enrollment is legislatively set, all of the various colleges and the graduate school reported an increase in enrollment from 2000 to 2004. During that period, total enrollment grew from 1,855 to 2,226.

The growth is also necessary, Wilson said, as demand for health care services increases in the coming years. He said there may be discussion of increasing the number of College of Medicine students.

“There is a real shortage of health care professionals and it’s going to get worse,” he said.

You can click through the PowerPoint presentation while listening to the audio file of the chancellor’s state of the campus address.

To download and view the PowerPoint presentation, click here.  (This file is zipped and includes a .PPS file and a .WAV sound file - 42 MB).

To download and listen to the accompanying audio files of the chancellor’s presentation, click on the following links.

File 1 .MP3 (361 KB) File 2 .MP3 (1.9 MB) File 3 .MP (1.9 MB) File 4 .MP (1.7 MB)

File 1 .WAV (7.3 MB) File 2 .WAV (37.8 MB) File 3 .WAV (39.7 MB) File 4 .WAV (33.9 MB)

You may also download the PowerPoint presentation and sound file separately.

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