Newark will soon house a satellite clinical campus for Thomas Jefferson University's Jefferson Medical College as a continuing collaboration of the Delaware Health Sciences Alliance .
University Provost Dan Rich said the campus might be built on the former site of the Daimler Chrysler plant, which closed in December.
"It could be prospectively the Daimler plant," Rich said.
The DHSA is a partnership between the University of Delaware, Thomas Jefferson University, Christiana Care Health System and Alfred I. duPont Hospital for Children.
Rich said the plan to build the satellite campus is of major importance to university students because it will offer enriched possibilities and a strong faculty. He said the campus will encourage medical students to come to Delaware to do their clinical training, which will help create new jobs, establish new businesses and generate money from research.
Because the University of Delaware, Jefferson University and the Delaware Institute of Medical Education and Research are working together to build the campus, there is a greater possibility to receive federal funding, Rich said.
In an op-ed in The News Journal, Robert Barchi, president of Thomas Jefferson University, wrote that "the campus will house classrooms equipped with video conferencing technology, study halls and a new residential facility."
The university will host a conference today called Stronger Health-Based Partnerships, which will feature representatives of all members of the DHSA. Among the speakers will be Gov. Jack Markell, who will show his support for the Alliance in his first major keynote speech as governor, Rich said. Another featured speaker will be Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and founder of the Center for Health Transformation.
Rich said the keynote speaker for the Future of Health Policy in a Time of Transition had not been confirmed, but it will be a national policy expert speaking on behalf of President Barack Obama's administration.
The university and the Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University have a longstanding partnership jointly sponsoring the Medical Scholars Program, in which a student earns a bachelor's degree from the University of Delaware and a medical degree from Jefferson.
Two juniors in the accelerated nursing program, Allison Starr and Jessica Boaman, said the clinical campus is great news.
"Thomas Jefferson has a good reputation," Starr said. "I would think that we'd be exposed to more cutting-edge technology."
Boaman said the campus will be a beneficial experience for students.
"They will be more confident coming out of the program," Boaman said. "And more instructors will help."
Starr and Boaman said they are both impressed with the university's nursing program and their professors, but they said some of their resources are outdated and the facilities do not offer enough space. Boaman said she likes that the clinical campus will probably have state-of-the-art equipment and offer the opportunity for students to gain field experience there.
"Clinical work is nerve-wracking but necessary," Boaman said. "It's not the same working with mannequins that can't respond."
Follow us on Twitter
Subscribe to our feed
Contact us through email
Be the first to comment on this article!