Incoming president sets goals for MCO

11/7/2003

More research funding, more collaboration with other colleges, and more focus on streamlining will be at the top Dr. Lloyd Jacobs agenda when he starts his new job as the next president of the Medical College of Ohio.

Dr. Jacobs, 62, was named the sixth president of MCO on Oct. 2 and expects to start full time Nov. 17. He discussed his hopes for MCO during a taping of The Editors television program.

MCO is much smaller than the University of Michigan Health System where Dr. Jacobs has been chief operating officer since 1997. However, Dr. Jacobs said MCO s small size makes it better suited to adapt to the rapidly evolving fields in medicine. He said MCO s goal should not be to get bigger, but to pick and choose what it does best and improve those areas, and to avoid spreading itself too thin.

Dr. Jacobs was interviewed by Tom Walton, vice president-editor of The Blade.

The medical college - which has 3,000 employees, 1,000 students in undergraduate nursing, and 500 medical students - has struggled financially for several years. Dr. Jacobs said his goal is to improve its finances by such means as increasing patient care volume and pushing hard for more research dollars.

Because of tight funds, MCO raised tuition 10 percent this year, the biggest increase in school history. Dr. Jacobs said MCO must be careful not to price itself out of reach of students.

“Our fundamental mission is the transmission of knowledge from one generation to the next,” he said, adding: “My own vision is we can be and should be the best [medical college] for medical education in the country.”

The Editors will be broadcast at 8:30 tonight on WGTE-TV, Channel 30. It will be repeated at 12:30 p.m. Sunday on WBGU-TV, Channel 27.