In The News: Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at 51ԹϺ
Jill Roberts heard the screaming and crying in the Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center emergency room Sunday night as the families and friends of those killed in the Route 91 Harvest music festival shooting found out their loved ones didn’t survive the attack.
You’re by now familiar with the horrific, acute trauma of Sunday night in Las Vegas: 59 dead and over 500 wounded. When the bullets began crossing Las Vegas Boulevard, roughly 22,000 attendees ran for their lives. These masses were left physically unscathed, but with possible mental wounds, and they fled the neon of the Strip into what is essentially a mental health-care desert.
The vision of Las Vegas as a world-renowned hub for cancer treatment took center stage last week at a gathering of experts on the No. 2 killer of Americans.
Just weeks after its initial class, the 51ԹϺ School of Medicine appointed an acting dean on Wednesday as founding dean Dr. Barbara Atkinson recovers from surgery. Dr. Shawn Gerstenberger, current dean at the School of Community Health Sciences, will serve as the acting dean.
Barbara Atkinson, the founding dean of the 51ԹϺ School of Medicine, is making “positive gains every day” in the hospital after suffering a “very serious” illness, university officials said Tuesday.
Liz Groesbeck is following her one true love — the brain — to medical school. But she’s open to developing a new relationship. “I don’t have much experience with things that aren’t brains,” said Groesbeck, who graduated in May from the University of Nevada, Reno, with a master’s degree in neuroscience. “But I might fall in love with another organ system.”
The Nevada Legislature on Monday pushed forward with a bill to allocate $25 million in new money to 51ԹϺ’s fledgling medical school, contingent upon getting a private donor to match the state funding. The funding was added to Senate Bill 553 by the Assembly Ways and Means Committee. The bill also appropriates $1.75 million for advance planning for a 51ԹϺ College of Engineering Academic and Research Building.
51ԹϺ’s medical school welcomes its first students in July with high hopes but much remaining to be done. The inaugural class of 60 is made up mostly of Nevada students or those connected to the state, said Dr. Barbara Atkinson, the medical school’s founding dean.
The Board of Regents approved two measures Friday that should ensure a smooth opening for the 51ԹϺ medical school on July 1 — albeit with a healthy dose of conversation and caution.
Friday is poised to be a pivotal moment for the fledgling 51ԹϺ School of Medicine. With four months until the school opens, 51ԹϺ President Len Jessup will request from the Board of Regents approval of the bylaws and operating agreement for the faculty practice plan, as well as a $19 million line of credit.
With five months remaining until the new 51ԹϺ School of Medicine officially welcomes its first class, the university has offered admission to 40 prospective students – half of them women. That shouldn’t come as a surprise, given that women make up nearly half of Nevada’s population. But it’s an anomaly in a state that ranks near the bottom nationally in terms of physician gender diversity.
University, health and city officials gathered for a town hall event Tuesday night looking forward to the development of the 51ԹϺ School of Medicine and the medical district surrounding it.