NEPA Vital Signs - Summer Fall 2017 - 22

LACKMEDSOC.ORG

Community

Looking Back

The Birth of a Medical School

f you ask a medical student about the
importance of vision, you will not be disappointed with the detail in the answer
that you receive. Whether it is discussing the
night blindness of vitamin A deficiency, the
retinal damage of chronic hyperglycemia, or
the location of brain lesions based on defect
patterns in the visual field, the concept of
vision is a crucial topic in modern medical
education. At the Geisinger Commonwealth
School of Medicine, however, the term vision
carries an additional meaning that is both
symbolic and impactful.
In order to address the ever-increasing
deficit in physician numbers and healthcare
availability faced by Northeastern Pennsylvania, a group of seven area physicians and
business leaders developed the collective
vision to establish an innovative, community-centered medical school. This vision of
"the founding seven," as they would come
to be known, led to the birth of the state's
newest allopathic medical college and the
current role model for community-based
medical education.
In October 2004, Charles Bannon, Gerald
Tracy, Robert Wright, Robert Naismith,
Gerald Joyce, Michael Costello, and Mark
Perry ("the founding seven") began planning
and gaining community support in order
to assess the feasibility of launching a new
medical school. This planning led to the
establishment of the Medical Education
Development Consortium, which, by 2007,
had selected its founding president and
dean, Robert D'Alessandri, MD.

TCMC's reach extends far beyond Scranton, as
students complete clinical experiences in more
than 25 hospitals and clinics in a 17-county region
around Northeastern Pennsylvania.
Under this new governance, The Commonwealth Medical College (TCMC) was
born. TCMC opened with the mission to
meet the unique healthcare challenges
facing the region, and this would require an
innovative approach to medical education.
This was accomplished in part by adopting
the model of the Longitudinally Integrated
Curriculum (LIC) for all third-year students,
making TCMC the first medical school in
the country to do so.
TCMC welcomed its first class of students to the Doctor of Medicine program in
August 2009. This class began with 24,000
square feet of space at Lackawanna College,
which served as TCMC's home until 2011,
when construction was completed on the
185,000-square-foot Medical Sciences
Building in Scranton. TCMC's reach extends
far beyond Scranton, however, as students
complete clinical experiences in more than
25 hospitals and clinics in a 17-county region
around Northeastern Pennsylvania.

In 2012, TCMC welcomed its current
president and dean, Steven Scheinman,
MD. Under Scheinman's leadership,
TCMC was granted full accreditation by
The Middle States Commission on Higher
Education and the Liaison Committee
for Medical Education in the summer
of 2014. In January of 2017, TCMC took
another leap in innovation by integrating
with the Geisinger Health System and
becoming the Geisinger Commonwealth
School of Medicine.
With now more than 400 students serving
17 surrounding counties, and more than
1200 volunteer clinical faculty members,
the vision of improving healthcare availability to the region with a new medical
school has materialized to a scale that
few - aside from the founding seven -
had imagined.
JASON HOMZA is a Doctor of Medicine student
at Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine.

Do you have some interesting knowledge about the history of medicine, medical technology or treatment, the evolution
of your specialty, or physicians or medicine in Lackawanna County? Email your submission to NEPAvitalsigns@gmail.com.

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NEPA Vital Signs - Summer Fall 2017