NE Ohio Medical U., Cleveland State, collaborate to train medical students

In August 2010, on the day he was installed as president of the Northeast Ohio Medical University, Jay A. Gershen, MD, pledged his commitment and his own money toward the creation of a new "education for service" program. Since then, NEOMED officials have been working on Gershen's concept, designed to provide students from rural and urban communities with full-tuition scholarships to the university. "Our goal is to develop the pipeline and train students who are more likely to go back to those communities," said NEOMED Dean Jeffrey Sussman. Ultimately, he said, the hope is that the medical school can provide a supply of primary-care physicians and pharmacists who want to return to their home communities, underserved places where the shortage of those professionals is acutely felt. On average, the annual salaries of physicians in primary care -- family medicine, general internists, geriatricians -- are dwarfed by the salaries of specialists. More and more medical students are drawn to specialty care.