BLAZING
The University Daily
KANSAN
University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas
Vol. 93, No.157 USPS 650-640
Wednesday, July 13, 1983
Weather
Today will be mostly sunny with highs in the mid 90s, according to the National Weather Service in Topeka. Winds will be from the south at 10 to 15 mph.
It will be fair tonight with lows around 70.
Tomorrow will be partly cloudy with highs in the
80s.
Stephen Phillips/KANAN The night lights reflect off the Kaw and illuminate nearby buildings. The picture provides an east view of the river and shore from Burcham Park.
Law cuts help for med students
By MELISSA BAUMAN
Staff Reporter
Staff Reporter
Expense and an expected nationwide glut of doctors are responsible for scaling down scholarships the University of Kansas Medical Center gave students willing to practice in underserved areas in Kansas, Med Center officials said.
The law, which the Kansas Legislature passed April 23, went into effect July 1.
ITWILL DECREASE the 100 scholarships now offered by the school by 25 each year starting with the 1884 school year until only 50 scholarships are available, said Bill Joure Burge, director of Student Financial Aid at the Med Center in Kansas City, Kan.
The program, started in 1978, pays tuition and $500 each month to students willing to practice in critically underserved areas. Burge said. Tuition at the Med Center is $4,517 a year.
TWENTY-NINE COUNTIES of the 105 counties in Kansas are designated as critically underserved. Franklin, Jefferson, Leavenworth, Miami and Osage counties, all bordering Douglas County, are among those classified as critically underserved.
Counties classified as underserved average between 33.3 and 35.8 physicians for every 100,000 people. Eight counties are underserved.
every 100,000 people was the average for Kansas. Burge said that for each year a student used
Hamas said 47.7 full-time physicians for every 100,000 people was the average for Kansas.
the scholarship he either had to practice for a year in an underserved area or repay the money. Either plan takes place after he finishes his course, which is usually three years after graduation.
She said the new law not only scaled down the number of scholarships, but also allowed the Med Center to place money from students who repaid the scholarships back into the fund to use
UNTIL. LAST YEAR, when the number of scholarships was cut to 100, there was no limit on the number of applicants.
About 75 percent of the medical students,150 to 160 people in each class of 200, used the scholarships before the limit was established, she said.
Burge said the program was started because of uneven distribution of doctors in Kansas and because some Med Center graduates were not staying in Kansas to practice. Cities were drawing a supply of doctors, but rural areas were not.
Scholarships are being scaled down because the Kansas lawnmakers think that there will be an oversupply of doctors by 1990 and also because the cost of the program reached about $6 million before it was limited to 100 scholarships, she said.
Hannas said the Kansas Department of Health and Environment compiled the 1982 Kansas Medically Underserved Report, which predicted more doctors than it needed by 1990.
LAST YEAR the program cost about $4.7 million and the appropriations for this year are $4.1 million. Burge said.
Burge said although there might be more doctors in Kansas, this did not mean that the
underserved areas would have a sufficient supply. The trend is that doctors graduating from medical school are heading for urban practices.
A. J. Yarm, associate vice chancellor for academic affairs at the Med Center, also said that even with the predicted 5 percent oversupply, shortages might exist in some areas.
"THE SITUATION IN Kansas has improved, but we still have some serious shortages in certain areas of the state and, in particular, with regard to family physicians," Yarmat said.
He said it was too early to know what impact the Med Center's scholarship program would have.
Burge agreed that it was too early to tell whether the program was fulfilling its purpose of persuading doctors to stay in Kansas because it would not be able to do so. June were only on the scholarship for one year.
Of those completing their residence last year, she said, half repaid the money instead of paying her rent.
She said that because their tuition was only paid for one year, repaying the money was no problem for most graduates and that these students are in an accurate gauge of the program's success.
McMurry sentenced for bus funds embezzlement
"IN A COUPLE OF years we'll really be able to tell. This fifty-fifty bit isn't indicative of what's going to happen," Burge said.
She said the figures on doctors who had been on the scholarship for two years and just graduated from school were much lower.
Because of certain changes made last year in the conditions of the scholarship, Burge said, fewer students had been applying than in previous years.
Rv CHARLES RARNES
Staff Reporter
Steven McMurry, former director of KU on Wheels, was sentenced Friday in Douglas County District Court to eight to 20 years in prison and told to pay $257.05) in resituation to the court.
McMurry pleaded no contest to five counts of theft June 10 and District Court Judge Ralph King found him guilty on all five counts.
KING ORDERED FRIDAY that McMurray, 28, serve from two to five years in prison for each of four counts of theft. These sentences will run consecutively.
McMurray also was sentenced to two to five years on a fifth count. However, King ordered McMurray to serve the fifth sentence concurrently.
McMurry was charged last September with taking money from KU on Wheels, the University's student-subsidized transportation system.
McMurray acknowledged in court Friday that he had taken $200,000 in cash and checks from the bus fund, but he disputed the theft of an additional $75,651.
Harry Warren, assistant Douglas County district attorney, said that the $275,011 figure
See DOCTORS page 5
was determined by the KU Police Department, which recently completed an audit of McMurry's University State Bank account from 1976 to the fall of 1982.
MCMURYR'S LAWYER, Wesley M. Norwood,
said at McMurry's trial last month that he hoped
he and a lawyer representing the University
could work out a resiliation agreement.
But University counsel Ronald Broun said that Norwood had consistently offered a sum significantly lower than the amount discovered stolen by the KU Police Department audit.
Norwood could not be reached for comment.
"We took the position that he should pay back what he stole," Broun said yesterday, "and it
BROUN SAID THAT the University had gone to great lengths to determine the amount taken in this "cold-blooded embellishment."
He said neither McMurry nor his lawyer had talked of restitution until about two months ago.
He also said that the University would take every possible measure to make sure that restitution was paid.
King ordered repayment to the students and not to the University at large. Brown said.
HE SAID HE HOPED that any restitution received would be used to benefit students and
Steven McMurry
But Broun said that it would not be feasible to try to hunt down students who bought bus passes during the time McMurry was in charge of the funds.
Broun said that the "bleeding of funds" contributed to the increase in bus fares and ultimately affected all students who rode the bus.
REGARDING MCMURY'S ability to pay the restitution, Warren said, "McMurry has reported at $70,000 worth of assets he can jounture."
Broun said that McMurry had offered to turn over certain properties to the University.
"We aren't going to liquidate the property in order to give it like a game," he said. "We have to tie it down and get the best price."
Although Brom was unsure of McMurry's ability to pay back the entire $257,051 immediately, he said the University would keep track of how much assistance and make sure that he nailed the entire sum.
"HIS SENTENCE WAS consistent with what he and the length of time he did it."
Warren said that McMurray is being held in Douglas County Jail until the issuance of "commitment," an order sending him to an evaluation center.
He will then be sent to the Kansas Rehabilitation and Diagnostic Center in Topokia for evaluation.
Judge King has 120 days in which to modify the sentence.
Public favors redevelopment Angino says
Staff Reporter
By GENE HUNTER Staff Reporter
Lawrence City Commissioner Ernest Angino at last night's City Commission meeting refuted Mayor David Longhurst's assertion that the public was overwhelmingly against a downtown redevelopment plan proposed by the city's developer of record.
Longhurst at last week's commission meeting read a prepared statement in which he outlined his opposition to the plan, proposed by Sizeler Realty Co. Inc., Konner, La.
ANGINO SAID IN a prepared statement last night that he did not agree with Longhurst that the public perception of the plan was overwhelmingly negative.
He said that many people had expressed a desire to see something done to improve downtown and that others had commented on the
See CITY page 5
Protective custody causes trauma for abused children, social workers say
By CHARLES BARNES
Staff Reporter
Summer — a time marked by children playing in parks and swimming in pools.
But for some of Lawrence's young, the bliss of blue sky and cool breeze can be shattered by a traumatic experience -- being placed in protective custody.
DURING JULY an estimated 40 children will be investigated for possible court custody arrangements, Donna Flory, supervisor of the Child Protective Services Department and Rehabilitation Services, said yesterday.
It is especially traumatic for a child if, when he is taken from his parents, he has to witness a confrontation between social workers, police and parents. Florv said.
"Many children placed in custody are scarred for life." Florv said.
She said she still remembered the story of a fellow employee who recalled the feeling of being "ripped out of her mother's arms" when she was a child.
"COUPLE THIS WITH being separated from parents, relatives and home and you have a traumatic experience."
"At the time a petition is filed for protective custody," the situation in which the child is living under care is stated.
"Our No. 1 goal is to preserve the family." Flory said, "and only when the child is in imminent danger do we recommend that the child be placed in protective custody."
Mark Gleason, Douglas County Court service officer, said that 21 patients had been filed this year for protective custody of children who have allegedly been severely neglected, abused or
GLEASON SAID THAT of the petitions filed for protective custody in 1982, two were filled for abandoned children. 17 for abused children. 22 for emotionally abused children. were filled for "emotionally abused" children.
Gleason said that of the 51 petitions filed, 26 were on behalf of children 7-year-old or younger, 12 were for children ages 8 to 12, and 13 were for children ages 13 to 16.
Twelve of these petitions were dismissed by the court he said.
ACCORDING TO FLORY, most of the children placed in protective custody suffer from being out of touch with the outside world.
During 1982 there were 39 children placed in the custody of their parents, individuals other than those held by Gleason, a Cleaon judge.
"Even if children are physically abused at home, for the most part, they still identify with their parents." Flory said, "and when they grow up, they feel more angry at the system than their parents."
Flory said that many adults who remember being placed in custody when they were young resent the social or police agency that separated them from their parents.
She said that besides being in new surroundings with unfamiliar faces, these children do not know where their parents are, and they do not know what to expect. Their probably will not come back to claim them.
"It is a devastating experience for a child to be taken into custody after being abandoned by his mother."
But some children are not separated from their parents by social workers or police — some
FLORYSAID SAID Douglas County has three full-time and one part-time SRS employees who investigate an average of 40 new cases a month involving children in need of care. An additional 20 "on-giving cases" also need follow-up work each month.
"Of the 40 new cases investigated in a month, about one third involve children under 7 years of age."
According to Flory, 5 percent of the 40 cases investigated result in a petition for custody being issued.
"We can't confirm abuse or neglect in some cases." Fliess said.
"In other cases parents merely over-disciplined their children," Flory said.
See WARDS page 5