University Daily Kansan / Monday. Aug. 28. 1989
13B
Enrollment in med tech increases
Recruitment drive seen as one factor
By Doug Fishback Kansan staff writer
Enrollment this year in the KU medical technology program is the highest in 10 years, and the increase may be attributable to increased recruiting in the face of a national shortage of medical technologists.
After years of meager enrollments, the School of Allied Health this year has drawn 25 students to the University of Kansas Medical Center for the final year of the four-year med-tech program, said Virginia Johnson, program director. This number, though up from recent years, still is shy of a full class of 30, she said.
The program has not been keeping pace with others in the School of Allied Health, said James Cooney, dean of the school. The physical therapy program, for instance, this year received more than 300 applications for 32 openings, he said.
Johnson and others have increased efforts during the past five years to draw more students into the med-tech track.
Program curriculum prepares students to work with physicians to diagnose diseases. Medical technologists use lab techniques and high-tech equipment to provide doctors with information needed for patient care.
"I saw a need for us to increase our recruiting efforts," she said.
Part of the recruiting strategy is to send KU
faculty to other Board of Regents schools, Johnson said. This strategy seems to be working, as 13 of this year's class joined the program from other schools.
To acquaint more students with medical technology, Johnson offered an introductory clinical science course last year at Emporia State University. She also teaches the course, begun in 1986, once each year on the Lawrence campus.
"I think it provides them with information on medical technology which they otherwise might not know."
Johnson said she thought this year's increased enrollment was due in part to the recruitment drive and to the introductory class.
But there still is a nationwide shortage of medical technologists, Cooney said, and this problem will not disappear easily.
"We feel that those efforts have paid off," she said.
A 1888 survey by the American Society of Clinical Pathologists showed that nearly 12 percent of the med-tech positions in the Midwest were vacant.
"There's only so much we're going to be able to do to resolve that problem in the educational arena," Cooney said. "We're very market driven."
Market pressures and changes in the field over the past few years have drawn a large number of potential med-tech students into other fields, Cooney said.
One change that has depersonalized the field has been increasing technology, which leaves many technologists disillusioned with the roles they play amidst the machines, Cooney said.
"So much of the medical technology has become so high tech that you feel like a cog in an assembly
Another reason for the drop in the number of med techs is that women, traditionally a large segment of that work force, now find the doors to other careers wide open.
Likewise, those who do choose to become medical technologists have an increasing number of employment options, Cooney said. More and more private testing firms are drawing employees away from hospitals, he said. An example is the large number of technologists employed by insurance companies, as AIDS tests have become routine.
Cooney said hospitals also competed for the dwindling pool of technologists with plastic manufacturing companies and even with computer software companies, which use the technologists' math and science skills.
Hospitals should provide continuing education to employees as medical technology changes. Good
Johnson said market forces already may be bringing about some of these changes.
And hospitals must bring salaries into line with those offered by private-sector firms, he said, because these firms are drawing off talent that would benefit the medical field.
She said that advertisements for medical technologists had appeared in newspaper want ads in the past couple of years, a change from just five years ago.
Likewise, she said, salaries have risen 20 percent over the last two years. A technologist employed by a hospital now can expect a yearly starting salary of $24,000.
But it still is too early for a prognosis for the field, Cooney said. The question is whether the rising salaries and enrollments will continue.
Med Center may finance transplants
By Angela Baughman Kansan staff writer
Publicly financed heart transplants for the poor soon may become a reality at the University of Kansas Medical Center.
John Alquest, commissioner of income maintenance and medical services for the state Department of Social and Rehabilitation Services (SRS), said the transplantes would be available through a special arrangement between SRS and the Med Center.
Financing for the program will come from Medicaid, a federal medical payment program for indigent patients, Alquest said. SRS must first certify the Med Center to do the transplants under the program.
agreed to share the costs in order to become certified.
Alquest said that Medicaid normally worked with a combination of federal and state funds. Because SRS did not have enough state Medicaid funds to begin the transplant program, he said, the Med Center
Hospital costs would be covered by the Med Center; physicians' fees and prescription drugs would be covered by SRS.
Eugene Staples, vice chancellor of the Med Center, said Med Center staff prepared for SRS to send a sample contract before anything could be finalized.
Alquest said, "There are no other programs at SRS like this. The heart transplants are unique because of the costs involved."
Alquest estimated the average cost of a transplant, with no complications, to be $125,000. That figure represented hospitalization and physicians' fees. Medication after hospitalization could run between $8,000 and $12,000 a year, Alquest said.
Alquest said although the number of transplants would not be limited, he did not expect more than three or four transplants a year through the
program.
Fred Kouri, spokesman for the Med Center department of social services, said patients had to meet certain criteria to qualify for Medicaid transplant.
One, the patient must be disabled, which Kouri defined as being unable to work for one year. Next, the patient must be financially indigent.
Kouri said he would be surprised if the Med Center handled more than five of the Medicaid transplants in a year and estimated the average cost of each transplant, $75,000, with follow-up and medication at $10,000 to $20,000 a year.
Randy Attwood, a Med Center spokesman, said the Med Center currently performed heart transplants but wanted the Medicaid program to provide transplants for those who otherwise could not afford them.
Attwood said as of Aug. 18 the Med Center had seven patients on a waiting list for new hearts; some might qualify for the Medicaid program.
A Eudora girl, 14 months old gets 3rd liver
By a Kansan reporter
A 14-month-old Eudora girl was slowly awakening from a drug-induced coma Thursday, one week after receiving a liver transplant at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, Neb.
Ashley Damani remained in critical condition after receiving her second liver transplant in three days. The blood clot formed in a vein in the liver
She received a rare reduced-size transplant. This procedure involves taking either the left or right lobe from a mature donor liver and transplanting it into a child. A full liver would be too large.
Damani needed a transplant because she suffered from biliary artery, a lack of bile ducts.
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