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SCRANTON — The Commonwealth Medical College (TCMC) and The Wright Center entered into a formal relationship Tuesday to collaborate on physician training and mentoring.
TCMC President and Dean Steven Scheinman and The Wright Center President and CEO Linda Thomas-Hemak signed a memorandum of understanding on Tuesday at TCMC’s facility in Scranton to formalize a relationship between the two institutions. Scheinman said that when TCMC was founded, it was expected that it would eventually partner with The Wright Center.
Scheinman said both organizations have been acting under that expectation for some time — now, the collaboration is official.
“After all, the missions of the two organizations are virtually the same … to train aspiring physicians in a manner that is innovative, collaborative, evidence-based and patient-centered to serve the people of Northeastern Pennsylvania,” he said.
Over 100 medical officials and students attended the signing. State Rep. Karen Boback and Scranton city officials were also among those in attendance.
TCMC is a fully accredited medical college that offers a community-based model of medical education campuses in Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and Williamsport. The Wright Center, centered in Northeastern Pennsylvania, is a community-based graduate medical consortium and the largest Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Health Consortium in the United States.
Collaborative efforts
According to the memorandum, both organizations will collaborate on strategic planning, education and training, clinical initiatives and potentially shared services.
A news release announcing the memorandum of understanding also indicates that both organizations have already proposed to co-create a psychiatry residency program starting in 2016.
Thomas-Hemak added that the psychiatry residency program could benefit mental health needs across Northeastern Pennsylvania.
TCMC and The Wright Center have been working collaboratively to enhance medical education for the past several years.
Kevin Musto, a 2014 graduate of TCMC, is currently training in internal medicine at The Wright Center.
Through the recent residency match, two other members of TCMC’s 2015 graduating class, Max Tolan and Daniel Shust, will also be training at The Wright Center in the Wilkes-Barre-based Family Medicine residency program.
Scheinman added that if physicians have their residencies in Northeastern Pennsylvania, they often decided to stay for their professional careers.
John Moses, secretary of TCMC’s board of directors and the chair of the board for Blue Cross of Northeastern Pennsylvania, agreed.
“We know that while 50 percent of the residents that do their residency in the community stay there, we also know that two thirds of the people that are educated in the community and do their residency in the community stay in the community,” he said.
Moses added that Blue Cross of Northeastern Pennsylvania spent $1.6 billion dollars last year outside of its service area to cover medical services. He believed that keeping physicians in the region could help recoup some of those costs.
“If we could salvage half of that $1.6 billion that leaves our 13-county area, it will have an immediate impact on the economy of those 13 counties of $800 million,” Moses said.
He added that additional funding could come from visiting family members of students, as well as visiting physicians and researches who use services and other facets of the communities.