Urban Hospitals Engage Beyond Medicine In Effort To Address Community Problems
In Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University and the Hopkins hospital and health system have begun an initiative to alleviate some poverty and improve health. Meanwhile, in Florida, the University of Central Florida is joining forces with HCA to train doctors in the hope that they will stay in the state. Also in Florida, the future of a key hospital funding program is uncertain.
Stateline:
Surrounded By Poverty, Urban Hospitals Reach Out
As a child, Bishop Douglas Miles heard the warnings about vans trolling East Baltimore streets, snatching up young African-Americans for medical experiments at nearby Johns Hopkins Hospital. Whether there was any truth behind those stories—Hopkins has always denied them—hardly mattered. The mythology lived on and, combined with the hospital’s very real development decisions, contributed to a persistent view of Hopkins as an imperious, menacing presence amid the largely poor and African-American neighborhoods surrounding it. (Ollove, 10/13)
Health News Florida:
UCF, HCA Partner For 550 New Residency Slots
The University of Central Florida announced a five-year deal with the country’s largest for-profit hospital chain to train doctors after graduation, with the hope that those slots will mean as many as 550 doctors will stick around Florida to practice medicine. Initial residency programs will be in internal medicine, family medicine and OBGYN. Doctors who graduate medical school can’t immediately see patients; rather, they must then do residency and fellowship programs after graduation. (Aboraya, 10/14)
News Service Of Florida:
Gardiner Says Health Funding 'Remains To Be Seen'
With Florida facing another cut next year in a key hospital-funding program, Senate President Andy Gardiner, R-Orlando, said Wednesday it "remains to be seen" whether lawmakers will use state tax dollars to help deal with the reduction. Gardiner addressed the issue, involving a program known as the Low Income Pool, while speaking to reporters and editors from across the state who gathered at the Capitol for an annual Associated Press event. (10/14)