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Yahoo
12-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Religion, research among the 5 goals the First Presidency set for BYU's new School of Medicine
PROVO — The key design elements for the planned BYU School of Medicine were set by the leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the inaugural dean of the BYU School of Medicine said this week. The chief goal for the medical school is to support the mission of the church and BYU, Dr. Mark Ott said during a presentation Monday at the annual International Society conference at the Hinckley Center on campus. Medical science and research are among the five key design elements set by the First Presidency, Ott said. At the same time, even though there already are other religious-based medical schools around the country — 'and they all do a great work,' Ott said — BYU intends to be unique in the way it combines medical science and faith. The five design elements are to: Be spiritually based and mission-focused. Have a teaching and research emphasis. Offer an integrated bachelor's/medical degree to reduce time to complete medical training. Include international outreach, enrollment and alignment with church humanitarian efforts. Offer a reduced cost model. 'Those are the design principles that were given to us by the prophet and by the Lord himself,' Ott said. That conviction gives him confidence as he pursues a dynamic timeline in an attempt to secure accreditation and open the doors to the first 60 students in fall 2027. 'It's an exciting time and it's a terrifying time, but we're seeing over and over again the Lord's hand in this process,' he said. He added, 'When we're on the Lord's errand, we can expect his help.' BYU medical students will be taught that they need more than their human capacity to succeed, Ott said. The school will emphasize to students the importance of the covenants Latter-day Saints make with God through baptism and temple worship. 'We want our students to understand, first and foremost, that they are a child of a loving Heavenly Father, that they are a child of covenant and a disciple of Jesus Christ. Those three things that President Nelson talks about are very important,' he said. The inaugural dean shared several experiences of ways he felt God was helping his team over the past six months. One related to the way medical schools are compressing what once was the first two years of lectures to somewhere between one year and 18 months. What would BYU do? The working group addressing the issue struggled to reach a consensus. Ott said he attended the temple the next day and was struck by the increased capacity and endurance promised to those who make one of the covenants there. He also recalled a Latter-day Saint scripture that states, 'Doubt not, fear not.' (Doctrine and Covenants 6:36) 'I knew if our students would honor their covenants, that they would be able to do a 12- to 15-month curriculum,' he said. Another committee member had the same experience, and the committee moved ahead. BYU President Shane Reese also addressed the role spirituality can play in education at Monday's event. He said the leader of a state university system recently told a conference of American university presidents that leaders in higher education needed to practice more humility and listen and learn from critics. Reese added that schools also should practice an abundance of forgiveness. 'You see, these are gospel methodologies, and gospel methodologies will serve and solve the world's problems in ways that secular ideologies cannot. They simply fall short,' he said. Teaching students takes precedence over faculty research at BYU, a decadeslong practice restated again recently by church leaders and Reese. BYU does emphasize mentored research, with undergraduates conducting research under faculty supervision. Ott reiterated that teaching will be the primary responsibility of the School of Medicine, but he said a focus on research must be built into the curriculum. 'We want these young women and men to learn the principles of science and to understand that asking questions and coming up with theories of how to address those questions and then implementing those theories and seeing if they hold up is a critical part of becoming a physician,' he said. Such research can move health care forward. 'As important as it is to solve problems, it is even more necessary to find new solutions to problems so that we can put old problems in the rearview mirror and go on to newer problems that need to be addressed,' he said. One of the efforts of the 15 working groups building the plans for the school is to fulfill a vision to create a shorter and less expensive model. 'The Lord's prophets would like to reduce the cost and shorten the time it takes to become a physician,' Ott said. 'There's a big demand on both time and money. So the (plan) is to develop an integrated pathway that lets you go from a bachelor's degree into medical school in an accelerated fashion.' He didn't share any details about the integrated bachelor's/medical degree, but he did say that students will still be able to enter the school in the traditional way of earning a bachelor's degree at another school and applying to BYU as a first-year medical student. He said church leaders wanted an alternative pathway that would save time and save money to help international students, especially. The Church of Jesus Christ already subsidizes the tuition of every BYU student. The same will be true of the School of Medicine, making its tuition significantly lower than other medical schools. Part of the goal is to encourage the international students BYU hopes to attract to return and practice medicine in their home countries. 'That will be a blessing in the lives of our students, so they don't accumulate as much debt that then drives career decisions about making money to pay that debt back,' Ott said. 'We don't do any favors to their communities if they stay here in North America and never go back and be great leaders in health care and leaders in the church in the countries of their origin.' Ott said the advisory council and working groups continue to hone the way the school will reach the goal of aligning with the church's humanitarian efforts. 'That research emphasis and that humanitarian emphasis is built into the curriculum, from the first day through the last day of the fourth year,' he said. 'We want them to experience serving and understanding the needs of underserved populations and peoples throughout the world, and to be in those environments.' Part of the faculty's job will be to help students see that they need to be engaged in church and community service even while juggling the demands of medical education. 'One of the traps of medicine is that it is so demanding to learn and master this material that you can easily justify saying ... 'I just need to focus on that,'' Ott said. 'My experience through the years is that those who do that, more often than not, don't get back to (doing that).' He wants students to understand that more time doesn't materialize later, as responsibilities build. 'If you don't learn to master them at each level, you become overwhelmed at the next level,' he said. 'So that's part of our process is helping them to understand that they need to serve in the church and in their families and in their communities while they're doing this demanding work in school.'
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
The BYU medical school's all-gas, no-brakes goal for when it will admit its first 60 students
Dr. Mark Ott's wife likes to keep him humble and focused by reminding him that until he secures accreditation, he is the inaugural dean of the 'imaginary' BYU School of Medicine. Both Stefanie Ott and the members of the national accreditation board — the Liaison Committee on Medical Education — have Dr. Ott's full attention. 'They have incredibly challenging standards, and in fact, we are not a medical school until they say we are medical school,' he said Monday at the 35th annual International Society conference at BYU's Hinckley Center. Job No. 1 is to submit more than 1,000 pages of planning documents to the LCME by Aug. 1. Dr. Ott said his team members have completed about 60% of that work. If they manage to finish in time, and the LCME grants accreditation during the earliest possible window, BYU would be on schedule to open its doors to students in fall 2027. 'This is an incredible amount of work on an extremely aggressive timeline,' Dr. Ott said. He added, 'If everything went perfectly, the earliest they could be here would be the fall of 2027 or the year after that.' That's because if BYU doesn't get the documents in on time, or the application is unsuccessful, the LCME requires a one-year wait to resubmit. Since success is so important, BYU has hired a few consultants who are experts on the process. The school also has assembled an advisory council and 15 working groups with more than 150 professional volunteers. 'They are amazing people,' Dr. Ott said. 'These are all people that have full-time jobs, that have other responsibilities in healthcare or other related things, at BYU and around the country, and they're each putting in another 10 to 20 hours a week of work on top of their family, church and career responsibilities, and they're doing it as volunteers.' Dr. Ott said his team recently reviewed the counsel they are receiving and made a startling realization. 'If we were paying for all these services that these people are giving between January and July, it would be roughly $10 million in salary,' he said. 'These are a bunch of very wonderful people.' Dr. Ott said the top question he gets asked is where the BYU will build the medical school. 'It's going to be in exactly the right place,' he said to laughter. An announcement will come relatively soon, he added: 'BYU has several properties that will work really well.' Another question he fields regularly is why BYU and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which sponsors the university, waited until now to launch a medical school. 'The answer to that is very simple. It is very complicated to create a medical school, and it is extremely expensive,' he said. In fact, he later said that the planning team still has not completed the financial model it will submit. 'It's very complicated, and the number is terrifyingly large,' Dr. Ott said, adding later that he expected that research dollars and philanthropy will help fund the school's work. Later he said the timing is right because the pieces are now in place. 'Resources exist within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and among its members that are phenomenal,' he said. The right people are prepared, the right structure is in place at BYU and in the church and Intermountain Health has grown strong enough to provide vital clinical relationships and residencies, he said. The right set of circumstances ... I don't think existed five years ago or 10 years ago,' Dr. Ott said. 'As much as people thought it would have been nice to have (a medical school), God is very patient. There's like a giant chessboard that he is bringing all pieces into alignment for this to succeed. 'It's just it's wonderful to be in my position and to see God's hand over and over and over.' In response to an audience question, Dr. Ott said the LCME restricts a new school's first class of students to 60 in case a school fails and students have to scramble to find seats at other schools. 'The ultimate size of our class will be much larger than that,' he said.
