A new partnership between MSU and Synergy Medical Education Alliance will provide the opportunity for third- and fourth-year medical students to work with underserved patients.
Under the agreement, participating students will spend their last two years of medical school working in Saginaw clinical settings, representatives from each group plan to announce today. The students also will provide health care one month each year in Belize.
Between eight and 10 students will be sent each year as part of the "Leadership in Medicine for the Underserved" curriculum, said MSU College of Human Medicine Dean Glenn Davis. The partnership will cost each group $150,000.
The announcement comes only months after a previous MSU-Synergy agreement was axed because of departmental budget cuts.
"The new partnership will allow students to work in Belize caring for people in a missionary type of setting, and do some public health work as well," said Terrance Lerash, the president and CEO of Synergy.
Formerly known as Saginaw Cooperative Hospitals Inc., Synergy Medical Education Alliance provides residency and medical training for St. Mary's Medical Center in Saginaw and Covenant Medical Centers in Cooper and Harrison. Residency training programs are offered in emergency medicine, family practice, internal medicine, general surgery, obstetrics and gynecology.
In October, MSU announced the formation of the Michigan Center for Health Education Training in the Communities. Although the center has no direct ties to the new partnership, students will be working with the same type of patients - the medically underserved.
"This new program is refined and redesigned," Davis said. "It's downsized, so it's not as financially expensive as it was before."
A previous MSU and Synergy partnership, which lasted more than 30 years, sent about 18 students each year to Saginaw for their clinical work.
The renewed partnership took a lot of negotiation and political wrangling, Davis said.
First-year medical student John Wechter said the appeal of traveling will bring more medical students to Saginaw.
"Students wouldn't go into Saginaw before because the Saginaw nightlife didn't have much to offer," he said. "People would go to places like Grand Rapids."
Wechter, who hopes to work in either reconstructive or orthopedic surgery, said he is very interested in the new opportunity, especially the chance to work in Belize.
"I always wanted to start up a clinic in some poor part of the world," Wechter said. "I don't want to be just one more doctor in a big city.
"I'd like to work in a beautiful part of the world where they need doctors, too."
Don Jordan can be reached at jordand3@msu.edu.
