New UConn medical dean wants more doctors, grants

PHOTO | Steve Laschever Dr. Bruce Liang, who is a cardiologist by trade, wants to invigorate the UConn School of Medicine by adding more students and attracting more research dollars.

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Dr. Bruce Liang, the new dean of the UConn School of Medicine, has set some lofty goals.

The Harvard Medical School alum and cardiologist by trade wants to increase class size by 12 percent and research grants by 22 percent, all in the next five years.

As the first person to permanently occupy UConn's newly modified dean position — now designed to solely focus on research and education — Liang faces two distinct challenges: Finding better ways to train more medical students to combat a coming doctor shortage, and fulfilling Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's Bioscience Connecticut goals of attracting more research to be eventually spun off into startup businesses.

“Without our students, we are nothing. They energize us and make us who we are,” Liang said. “We are not short on qualified students. It is a matter of training the ones that we have.”

Liang started as dean June 12, taking over following the November resignation of Dr. Frank Torti. As part of a new strategy, UConn President Susan Herbst split Torti's former job into two separate roles: A dean to oversee education and research and an executive vice president for health affairs, who oversees clinical care and patient experience for the UConn Health system. Liang was named permanent dean after filling an interim role since November.

The split position aims to give the dean and executive vice president clarity of focus in administering the increasing responsibilities of the UConn Health Center, said Dr. Andrew Agwunobi, who is serving as interim executive vice president. His position is expected to be filled permanently by the end of the year.

“My focus every day is 100 percent on the clinical enterprise,” Agwunobi said. “That allows the dean to focus on making sure this remains a premier institution with fantastic research.”

Liang said his immediate focus is hiring new faculty members, especially those who have grant-funded research or promising research that will soon be grant-worthy. He said finding the right people will help him achieve both his educational and Bioscience Connecticut goals.

The UConn School of Medicine currently has $82 million in grant funding for various research projects, including $52 million in federal money. Liang wants to reach $100 million in grants over the next five years.

That extra money not only directly funds new research but provides UConn the ability to make facility maintenance and improvements that, in turn, will attract more researchers, Liang said.

That research has the ability to spin off new patents — which create royalty revenue for the university — and potentially new startup companies to grow Connecticut's bioscience industry.

“That is all part of the governor's vision to use biomedicine to stimulate the economy,” Liang said. “My role is to implement that vision, to do the best we can with the opportunities.”

Collaborative efforts

Liang said he is working with Jackson Laboratory in Farmington to entice researchers to UConn, since the two facilities can work in conjunction to develop patent- and startup-worthy research.

Already, Jackson and UConn have spun off two startups to the UConn Technology Incubation Program: UConn Health faculty member Annabelle Rodriguez-Oquendo is conducting clinical trials on a cholesterol drug for her startup Lipid Genomics, and former Jackson Lab researcher Frank McKeon is developing lung and stomach disease therapies for MutliClonal Therapeutics.

“The research part of Bioscience Connecticut is already reaping some benefits in terms of new companies,” Liang said.

Adding new faculty members with research grants also enables the school to increase its class size.

UConn School of Medicine has a 4:1 ratio of faculty to students, which the school needs to retain if it is going to move up the U.S. News & World Report rankings of the best medical schools, which is a key metric for Liang, he said.

Two years ago, the school of medicine increased its class size to 98 from 89. Sometime after 2017, Liang said he wants to increase class size to 110 pupils, which would be a 24 percent increase from two years ago.

Growing its enrollment ranks, however, requires hiring more faculty and increasing clinic and hospital sites for students to get their four-year degrees and become doctors. UConn receives 3,000 applications annually for its medical school, Liang said, so finding qualified candidates isn't an issue.

Once the school can increase class size to 110 pupils, it will rank somewhere in the middle of the 145 U.S. medical schools in terms of class size, Liang said.

Stemming doc decline

Boosting class size isn't only about improving national rankings. Medical schools across the U.S. must graduate 90,000 doctors over the next 10 years to avoid a physician shortage by 2030, Liang said.

Young doctors are particularly important to solving the pending shortage since 31 percent of all doctors nationwide are aged 60 or older, up from the 26 percent who were in that age range in 2012, according to a census by the Federation of State Medical Boards.

For Connecticut to avoid a shortage, UConn and the other state medical schools must graduate more students, and hospitals and other healthcare institutions must make room for additional residencies and fellowships, said Matthew Katz, CEO and executive vice president of the Connecticut State Medical Society.

Complicating the state's potential workforce shortage: Connecticut has one of the worst climates in the nation for practicing medicine, Katz said, because of poor malpractice laws, high cost of living, and lack of incentives for graduating doctors, such as loan-forgiveness programs for physicians who practice in underserved specialties or areas.

“Residents and fellows don't stay here,” Katz said. “We run the risks of training more doctors but losing more to other states.”

Patient-care physicians in Connecticut generate $16.6 billion in annual sales revenue, $9.7 billion in wages and benefits, $764 million in state and local taxes, and 101,472 direct and indirect jobs, according to a study by Danbury information provider IMS Health.

Each doctor practicing in Connecticut generates 9.9 direct and indirect jobs in the state, so losing even a handful of physicians will have significant impact on Connecticut's economy, Katz said. It would also exacerbate a potential workforce shortage.

Lesson refresh

Liang — who oversees 3,000 students, residents, fellows and faculty members — also wants to improve and update the medical school's curriculum, which has remained largely unchanged in the last 20 years.

One method is to blend disease and clinical conditions curriculum with science-based principles, Liang said. For example, instead of teaching students all the anatomy they need to know in one semester, have them learn the body parts as they treat conditions — such as examining the brains of stroke victims.

“You align the disease with the treatment of the body,” Liang said. “Students will remember better. As they dissect the brain, they can learn the anatomy.”

Liang is a cardiologist by trade and most recently served as the director of the UConn Pat & Jim Calhoun Center for Cardiology. He said he was attracted to the specialty because many of the treatments for heart conditions show strong improvements.

“I like to see results,” Liang said.

His position at UConn enabled him to do heart research, which lead to a deeper understanding of how that impacts the healthcare industry.

“That is symbolic of what is unique here,” Liang said. “People can apply their research and see how it can improve patients' lives.”

CORRECTION:A previous version of this story misquoted Matthew Katz, CEO and executive vice president of the Connecticut State Medical Society, about residents and fellows not wanting to train in Connecticut. Katz said residents and fellows do train in Connecticut but often leave after that training is complete.

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