Separation is not a good idea

The Dean of the Faculty of Medicine thinks there are many advantages to being a part of the academic breadth offered by universities, and that it is important to be closely linked to other academic communities.

“The connection to the academic tradition is very important to us,” Slørdahl says.

Slowly throttled to death

On Friday, professors and chief physicians Amund Gulsvik and Anna Midelfart called for splitting the country’s four medical faculties from their host universities and giving the responsibility for medical education and research to the country’s regional health trusts. Gulsvik and Midelfart are respectively the head of and a board member of Physicians in Academia (LVS). They say that the current dichotomy cannot provide the kind of integration that is needed between research and health services.

“In academica, medical research will slowly be throttled. Under the regional health trusts, research and higher education will be in a much better condition to grow,” the two said to UA on Friday.

READ MORE: Would separate medical faculties from the universities

Physicians in Academia (LVS) is a professional association that is a part of the Norwegian Medical Association. A conference was held at the Medical-Technical Research Centre in Øya on Friday to celebrate the organization's first 20 years.

Interdisciplinarity and academic traditions

Withdrawing from the university has been discussed before. The University of Oslo’s Faculty of Medicine has raised the issue at the national meeting of the deans from the country’s four institutions for medical education.

The reason behind the recommendation - according to what UA has been told – is the positive experience that the Netherlands has had with this kind of organizational restructuring. A Dutch delegation earlier this year shared their experiences with physicians in Oslo.

However, the four medical deans still concluded that they would not pursue the idea.

“All four of us agreed that it is best if we continue to be a part of the academic breadth that is offered by the universities. Medicine is very dependent on multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary collaboration, so we want to be as close as possible to other academic communities. A connection to the academic tradition is very important to us,” says Slørdahl.

Frustration among the faculties

Why did the deans raise the idea at all?

“The discussion about reorganization was raised because of a frustration among the deans that medical faculties are not given high enough priority by the universities. I would add that I do not share this frustration on behalf of NTNU’s Medical Faculty. Historically, we have been a little bit to the side of the university’s structure, but now I believe that we are well integrated and that we are very well taken care of by NTNU.”

In search of synergy

Midelfart and Gulsvik believe a merger will improve the availability of resources available for research, and also could reduce administrative costs through synergistic effects. What do you think about this?

“We certainly could see some synergistic benefits from such an approach. But we can also realize this potential for savings now, because we already work very closely with the health trust. I already have regular meetings with St. Olavs Hospital director Nils Kvernmo. We have also established liaisons between the two institutions. We have actually tried to knit the two structures more tightly together.”

NTNU’s Medical Faculty has prepared a report – “The integrated university” -- that describes actions for improving cooperation between the two institutions. However, the Medical Faculty and the Regional Health Trust of Mid-Norway have not yet defined concrete goals for how much money could be saved by eliminating any possible duplication of efforts.

When asked why no targets had been defined, Slørdahl responded: “The goal of this increased integration is to boost our research output. That, in the long term, will result in more money.”