Jennifer Alcorn’s Post

Does Bloomberg's $1 Billion Donation to The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Really Matter? 🤔 Mike Bloomberg just dropped $1 billion to make the med school tuition-free, but it doesn't move the needle for the healthcare industry. Here's why: Yes, it opens doors for some students who might not afford med school otherwise, and that's great to break this financial barrier. But let's be realistic—Johns Hopkins med school accepts about 100 new students each year. In the face of a nationwide healthcare labor shortage, this initiative isn't going to fix the problem even if we fill all of these seats with people who deserve it or come from worse socioeconomic backgrounds. The same problem applies to my alma mater, NYU, which has offered tuition-free med school since 2018. These programs are simply too exclusive, so you don't really see a needle moving one way or another. We've got a healthcare system bogged down by inefficiencies and systemic problems. We make it way too hard to be a doctor in this country, and even harder to get doctors from abroad to practice here. Free tuition for a select few won't fix it. Don't get me wrong—Bloomberg's donation is a commendable step in the right direction. But let's not let the benevolent headlines blind us into thinking it's a cure-all. We need to rethink how aspiring healthcare workers can access medical education and break down the systemic barriers causing a labor shortage that is getting out of hand. It's time to look for innovative solutions and revolutionary approaches to streamline our healthcare system. It's time for a real conversation about what comes next. 💡 Learn more: https://lnkd.in/gxMn7QD6 #HealthNews #MedEd #Healthcare #Equity

More on the life changing gift and future for these students - Mike

Education must be free. Charging students tuition? I think that's the worst you can do to your future entrepreneurs, medical doctors, state runners, reflective minds, high profile managers: 'Free' in that everyone who is gifted enough, needs to be supported to be able to live up to their best, and that way, pay back, and pay forward, to their communities - to society, peers, parents, children, future citizens. It should be in the interest of every, any state, to support their citizens to help build everyone's future. Those who don't (want to) invest into public higher education, and believe in private solutions of educating, do not grasp the incredible rift between privilege and gift. Speaking of parents, and how mine have given me a gift: I'm stating this as someone who comes from a workers' background, and who had the privilege, thanks to my parents' sparse savings, and other (not many) supporting sources, to having been able to study (at the University of Tuebingen); then, to study abroad, at the University of Texas at Austin; and then, to earn my doctorate at the ETH Zurich.

Certainly, a billion dollars is a transformational gift-although the transformation might come in many positive ways or not. In my view, the best possible outcome might be increased representation of the local community in the medical school class so patients can see docs that are like them. Possibly a race to the top of the medical school rankings because hey!, who wants 100,000's in medical school debt? Medical students choosing specialties based on their interests rather than a specialty that will allow them to pay off loans fastest-maybe there is hope for Endocrinology in this scenario 😊! Only the future will tell. Is there any data on how NYU's student body was effected? Any unintended consequences? What are your thoughts about how this beyond generous gift might change Einstein, the student body, the faculty and everything else that follows?

A Tremendous-Relief for the Students 😀 But until the Research-Focus in Medical-Schools, Here & Elsewhere, Makes a Paradigm-Shift towards the {{{Mainstream-Diet of Meat & By-Products VS a Vegan & 50% RawFood-Diet, In-Season as Possible}}} No-Cures or Significant-Quantum Leaps will Be-Had!! Nothing Affects One's-Health & Well-Being as Much as What *One Actually-Puts Into* Their-Body as Food 💖 Thereby, the Old-Adage: *Doing the Same-Thing Over & Over-Again & Expecting Different-Results* = Einstein’s-Insanity 🙏 *DoNotKill is an Immutable-Law of Life*, & Includes the Animals, w/ a Right to Life as We~~~Stronger & Keener than Most-Humans!! *Nothing will Benefit Human-Health & Increase-Chances of Survival for Life on Earth, as The-Evolution to a Vegetarian-Diet* Einstein *Science-Based-Facts* is a Common-Motto often Repeated by Doctors & Researchers!! So-Where did the 1st-Scientific-Fact come from?? It came from An-IDEA, that was Thot & Talked about, Tested, & w/ Positive-Success, became the *1st-Scientific-Fact*...til Another-IDEA Added-To or Replaced-It~~~Throughout the Ages of Humanity!! Continued in Reply/Comment~>

Einstein medical students describe how a transformational gift of free tuition, the largest made to any medical school in the U.S., will change their lives. Also: An Einstein magazine interview with the donor. #MedEd #science #medicine #research #health #MedicalSchool #MedicalEducation #philanthropy #giving #Bronx #EinsteinMagazine

I hear from many who pursue non-physician paths that finances were a barrier to becoming a doctor. Being a doctor should not be reserved for “the elite” - that is how we end up with medicine not serving all. As a physician who is a child of #immigrants, of a community forced to be #refugees, as a woman of color, and as a patient, I see my job as serving the most marginalized. By leaving the U.S. at age 19 to go to med school abroad, in Pakistan, I had no med school #debt to make me feel my first priority was to pay down loans. I had freedom to choose jobs that paid less than nurses or physician assistants rather than the “doctor salary.” What I did not consider was my salary was that low because reimbursement was low. I was naive to the business of medicine that would get between me and the patient. Unfortunately, in a country where “payer mix” matters, by choosing #pediatrics - that reimburses 30% less than adult medicine - I made myself irrelevant. In fact, I put myself on the chopping block in American #healthcare. In a #health system run per capitalism, profit, margins, revenue, shareholder value matter. Of course, if pediatrics has lower reimbursement, then hospital administrators will cut pediatrics all together to replace with higher margin service lines or, if retaining pediatric services, will replace pediatricians with least trained and cheapest labor. Whereas expanding #clinician types was pitched as a way to expand access, in reality many non-physicians, like physicians, will follow the money. That is simply human nature. Savvy non-physicians choose to enter fields like dermatology, cosmetic procedures, orthopedics, anesthesia, etc to fast track to making $200K - $400K or more with a fraction of the loan burden. While removing debt burden is one needed step, there will still be a perverse incentive to fast track for the least time to a full salary and to choose the highest salary possible for your credentials. Even if you give up salary to serve, by being on that low revenue space, your entire field is perceived as low value. In the U.S., reimbursement is seen as a signal of quality and value.

A $1 billion gift to Johns Hopkins University from billionaire Mike Bloomberg will make medical school free for most students and increase financial aid for those enrolled in nursing, public health, and other graduate programs. In a Monday letter in the Bloomberg Philanthropies annual report, Bloomberg addressed the dual challenges of declining health and education. The gift marks an emphatic endorsement of the value of higher learning at a time when academia increasingly has been under political attack. “As the U.S. struggles to recover from a disturbing decline in life expectancy, our country faces a serious shortage of doctors, nurses, and public health professionals — and yet, the high cost of medical, nursing, and graduate school too often bars students from enrolling,” wrote Bloomberg, a 1964 graduate of Johns Hopkins and the founder of the Bloomberg business and financial data news company. “By reducing the financial barriers to these essential fields, we can free more students to pursue careers they’re passionate about — and enable them to serve more of the families and communities who need them the most.” https://lnkd.in/erBza-RS

As I’ve said before, tuition free medical school does NOT change what physicians do as a career and is NOT an effective way to enhance primary care. Kudos to Bloomberg for putting income restrictions on his historic gift to The Johns Hopkins University covering tuition for students by restricting the tuition assistance to families who earn less than $300K/year. But when it comes to incentivizing med school students to go into under-staffed specialties like primary care, we have learned that free tuition is not the solution. What's more, at this point, it’s not clear that free med school tuition increases more minorities or other under-represented groups going into medicine. The US needs more doctors, especially from certain backgrounds and in certain specialties. Free tuition is great, but it needs to be more specifically targeted with strings attached. #healthcareonlinkedin #medicalschool #medicalschooltuition #primarycare #physicianshortage #tuitionfree

This is such a great and transformative gesture from Mike Bloomberg. I think it is about time we redefine our conception of what it truly means to be rich—to be quantified in terms of positive impact on society. Stated differently, rather than celebrating people based on their sheer financial power and what they have in their bank accounts, we could begin conceptualizing wealth in terms of one's net impact on the world, as Bloomberg has just demonstrated. Latent wealth is merely potential. That potential, when directed to a just cause for the world's transformation, is true power. I have a two-part dream for Africa's transformation. While we work towards building a financial powerhouse for that cause, a $1 billion donation from any of the world's multibillionaires to our cause would help us usher in a new renaissance across the continent on a scale yet to be seen. May Providence be on our side.