Case Reserve Med School Facing Financial Problems?

"Case Squeezing Medical School, Dean Says"
By Regina McEnery
The Cleveland Plain Dealer, March 24, 2006

Less than a week after Case Western Reserve University President Edward Hundert abruptly resigned, the medical school's dean chastised the administration for undercutting pledged investments in the medical school and advised faculty and staff members of impending spending cuts.

In an eight-page e-mail sent Monday, Dr. Ralph Horwitz said the medical school will continue to make strategic investments but will take steps to reduce expenses in its administrative and academic units and defer or eliminate projects that are not critical to the school's mission or linked to faculty recruitment.

Horwitz said he had authorized spending millions to reform medical education, expand laboratories and recruit key faculty members in disciplines including cancer, cardiology and genetics since arriving from Yale University nearly three years ago.The expenditures were part of the medical school's campaign to improve its competitive edge and a key component of the university's ambitious Vision Investment Program, a five-year plan to funnel $181 million into undergraduate teaching, academic medicine, graduate research and other areas.

The university was to operate in the red until 2008, but the approach, and Hundert, came under fire when fund-raising efforts and federal research dollars that were supposed to erase the planned deficit fell short.

Horwitz said $57.5 million of the Vision program was dedicated to the medical school. He said he had understood the money to be a long overdue investment needed to restore the school's national reputation and competitiveness for research grants. Now, the university is treating it more like a loan, he said.

Before he arrived, Horwitz wrote, the medical school was losing key faculty members, driving away promising students and losing its competitive edge because of outmoded educational facilities, antiquated laboratories, decaying buildings and other problems....

Horwitz also took aim at disproportionate growth in Case's central administration expenses, particularly in fund raising and marketing, saying it contributed to the university's financial drain. Unresolved financial issues with University Hospitals of Cleveland, Case's longtime affiliate, over medical grants also are impeding the flow of revenue to the medical school, he said.