New Medical School Draft

Stephen Willis

2/8/2011

Comp 1

Essay 1 Draft

New Medical School

While most of us might think that 2012 will be the next y2k, or supposed end of the world Rowan is bringing in 2012 with a much more expansive attitude, stemming from the fact that it will be opening up its new medical school in Camden that year. In the fall of 2012 Rowan, partnered with Copper, will open its doors to the new Cooper Medical School of Rowan University. By doing this, Rowan is continuing to make its transition from a small state college to that of a large and well respected university.

This new school is the product of Jon Corzine signing an executive order which stated that Rowan and Copper University Hospital would partner together to make a new medical school in Camden. Copper has already been partnered with UMDNJ, which has been the only institution that could grant medical degrees in the state of New Jersey. This will change though once the school is finished in 2012, leaving two medical schools now in New Jersey.

The plan to partner Copper and Rowan together came as a relatively easy decision, given the circumstances. For one , Copper already has been a university hospital for the past 30 years and already pocesses the experience in medical training. It also has the staff and state of the art equipment to teach the next generation of doctors. Another strong factor was the presence Rowan already had in Camden, and the recognition it has gotten. Rowan has been very successful in the past with starting up new programs, one only has to look at the engineering building to understand this. To seal the deal was the entire profitable economic aspect of the partnership though. Its predicted that for every dollar invested, three will be made, and for an area that loses almost $2 billion of potential revenue to Philadelphia area hospitals, this partnership became a simple decision.

The building in development right now in Camden will be one of the most state of the art medical facilities in the country. Located on South Broadway and Benson Street the 139 million dollar six story building will be finished in the summer of 2012, and open its doors to the first class up to fifty students for the fall. Once up and running full steam it will boast a student size of 400. On the rowan site there is also a live camera which watches the construction of the medical building in real time, right now its nothing more then a bunch of concrete. When its finished the school will have, along with a host of classrooms and offices, an auditorium, research labs, a gross anatomy lab, and a vivarium.

For those who don't know much about a medical school, those last two might be a bit odd sounding. A gross anatomy lab is definitely something that lives up to its name. Its basically a human dissection lab, this is done so that no ones harmed by medical students who may or may not know what they are doing. The other special room, the vivarium, is where specialized research will be done. A vivarium in general is a greenhouse, but can also include live animals. The purpose of a vivarium is to do testing in a closed environment, which can also be controlled, which hopefully will lead to many medical breakthroughs in Camden.

Rowan right now is still in the first step of a five step process to actually have the school acredited to be a full on medical school. As of right now professors from both Copper and Rowan are working non stop to put together this new medical school. This means building the program from the ground up, this means anything from building a curriculum to setting standards for incoming students. The process will not be done till the first class graduates in 2016, assuming everything goes as planned.

The creation of this school, along with bringing profit and jobs to the South Jersey area, will also bring much notoriety to Rowan University. From it's humble beginnings as Glassboro State, Rowan has progressivly been increasing in size and prestige. Its only a matter of time till Rowan becomes one of the largest universitys in New Jersey.

Sources Cited:

--www.rowan.edu/coopermedicalschool