This is great news for BYU, the state of Utah and medicine in general.
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BYU does not plan to build a hospital or hospital system in which to train its med students. Currently BYU is seeking a healthcare partner to provide training sites.
BYU’s med school will be private and faith-affiliated. (Which I take to mean that it will primarily accept LDS members.)
BYU’s statement does not make clear whether the new medical school will an allopathic (MD) or an osteopathic (DO) program.
Currently neither the LCME nor COCA list BYU as having applied to open a medical school.
Utah already has one public allopathic med school at University of Utah (which is opening a second medical school campus at St George, UT in the 2025), plus two osteopathic med schools: Norda COM (private) in Provo and a campus of RockyVista COM (private) in Irvine, UT.
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I am sure it will be IHC (Intermountain Health Care), the LDS-owned healthcare provider (hospitals, insurance, etc.)
This is Very interesting news.
The LDS Church does not own Intermountain Health. The below paragraph is from the Intermountain Healthcare website.
History of Intermountain Health
Intermountain Health operations in Utah were first established in the early 1900s with the building of hospitals with funding and leadership like W.H. Groves Latter-day Saints Hospital (now LDS Hospital), the building of the Thomas D. Dee Memorial Hospital by Annie Taylor Dee (now McKay-Dee Hospital), Primary Children’s Hospital and others which ultimately became part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints health system. The Church maintained operations, until 1975, when it donated the then 15-hospital system to the communities it served, and Intermountain Health was formed as we know it today.
Well, yes technically Intermountain Health “donated” its hospitals and then Intermountain Healthcare was formed as a secular not-for-profit organization to administer those hospitals. It isn’t directly owned by the church, but it very much so is indirectly. All this is related to the very complicated and extraordinarily rich Mormon financial situation. They have many ways to own businesses outside of their religious mission, but to avoid losing their tax-exempt status as a religious institution they need to create (the appearance of) a wall.
the LDS Church is highly non-transparent about their finances and have often been accused of hiding and essentially internally laundering their vast vast wealth.
Creating a med school without places for the students to rotate or create new residency spots for them afterwords is not really helpful. So there will be more new doctors but same number of residency spots.
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I agree for sure with this, but I think it is just a matter of them figuring how to connect BYU with IHC without bringing in the IRS - only a matter of time before their army of lawyers will figure it out (IMO).
This is an interesting story. It does specifically mention IHC, but also says the new medical school will be focused on International Medicine - which is very on-point for the church. I imagine they will create “Medical Missions” where their doctors can get training outside of the United States and will not get paid at all, but will be housed by the Church. Internationally is where they are getting most of new members (and $$$) because the numbers of US Mormons is dropping pretty consistently.
My daughter works for Intermountain. The LDS does not own Intermountain.
Intermountain’s big hospital in Murray is in a long term contract with UU to provide clinical placement sites for their students. So the LDS Hospital in SLC.
Intermountain may have some smaller satellite sites that can take BYU students. (Intermountain has been expanding by buying up smaller hospitals in Idaho, western Colorado and parts of Nevada.) But there is a national shortage of clinical rotation sites.
All allopathic medical schools are required by the LCME (the national accreditor for all MD programs) to prove that they have sufficient rotation sites that meet LCME standards for their students. COCA (National accreditor for all DO programs) also requires med schools to provide a list of approved rotation sites for their students.
BTW, international rotations are not approved by the LCME or COCA. Nor any state medical board. Students who do any of their basic and required elective rotations overseas will not qualify for a US medical license. (Alternatively, doing overseas rotations may cause them to be considered IMGs–International Medical Graduates which requires an alternative pathway to residency and medical licensing,)
For a LCME accredited medical school, there is a requirement for substantial start up funding (Millions of $$$), plus a requirement for ongoing academic medical research as part of the med school which requires acquiring both faculty and facilities.
If BYU is trying to open a MD program, expect the timeline to be in the 3-10 year range.
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