Splitting medical faculties from universities

The doctors believe that Norway’s current approach limits the integration between research and health services. Specifically, the current division means a more bureaucratic structure than necessary, along with the duplication of tasks, a lack of accountability, and an unnecessary increase in the cost of the services that the two organizations are designed to provide - research and health care.

Break with the universities

Given all these factors, the medical faculties and hospitals should change their legal structure and break away from their respective universities, say University of Bergen Professor Amund Gulsvik, who is head of Physicians in Academia (LVS), a professional association, and NTNU Professor Anna Midelfart, who is an LVS board member.

The two are also chief physicians at the Haukeland University Hospital in Bergen and St. Olavs in Trondheim respectively.

The medical researchers dropped this bombshell at a research conference held to mark the 20th anniversary of LVS. The conference was held at Øya – home to St. Olav and NTNU’s newly built facilities specifically designed to better integrate the university with health services.

New health academies

The proposal from LVS would give the regional health trusts and faculties a common organizational structure that would then have responsibility for training doctors. This structure would provide better conditions for medical research, the two doctors believe.

“Over the long term, the Norwegian Storting and government could transfer the task of educating doctors to these new health academies,” says Gulsvik.

Synergy

The two doctors say that there are efficiencies to be had by merging two administrations that serve many identical tasks.

The doctors believe that the many medical/research positions that are shared under the two different employers result in an unclear situation for both employers, and reduce the ability of the two organizations to optimize their use of expertise and resources.

Throttling academia

The doctors decided to go public with their radical proposal because of the current budget situation. Academia is slowly being squeezed, with the recent national budget no exception. The establishment of the new regional health trusts has meant that academic expertise at university medical faculties has been given a lower priority than in the past, according to the two doctors.

The academic freedom offered by universities is of less and less value if there are fewer funds to spend pursuing this academic freedom in the form of research, the doctors argue.

The academic arm of the Norwegian Medical Association has discussed the possibility of this kind of merger in recent years. The idea has also been discussed in the medical faculties in Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim and Tromsø, according to Midelfart.

LVS now wants to present its ideas to the Church, Education and Research Committee of the Norwegian Storting and the Ministries of Education and Research, and of Health and Care Services.

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Should be voluntary

The professors emphasized that any merger with hospitals must be based on voluntary participation by the employees.

“We should start by debating this among the research staff at the universities and the health staff at the hospitals. These are the groups that are primarily involved,” said Gulsvik.

“Certain traditional academic roles should remain at the university, such as the awarding of doctoral degrees. In the same vein, the dual affiliation of hospitals and academic institutions makes sense in association with academic publishing, conferences and the like,” said Midelfart.