Mayor Tom Barrett said at last month’s Board of Regents meeting that the first school of public health should be located in Milwaukee rather than Madison, but a name change in Madison may shut the door on the idea.

On Oct. 8, the Board of Regents temporarily approved a name change of the University of Wisconsin Medical School to the UW School of Medicine and Public Health.

Barrett said that if UW changes its name, it will eliminate the chances of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee establishing a school of public health due to lack of funding.

“I don’t know that this state can support two schools of public health,” Barrett said at the October meeting.

The name change will not be permanently approved until after a collaborative review between the UW Medical School, the City of Milwaukee and UWM on how the change would affect Milwaukee.

“We are not against them (UW),” said Abbas Ourmazd, vice chancellor for Research. “We wanted to make sure we understood implications.”

Ourmazd has been working in collaboration with Randy Lambrecht, dean of the College of Health Sciences.

Through discussions, the UW Medical School and Milwaukee have agreed on three of four points.

“The name change in Madison should not exclude UWM establishing a School of Public Health,” Ourmazd said. “(And it) should not preclude UWM from developing appropriate program as a way to move forward.”

They also agreed to extend collaborations between UW and Milwaukee, especially through the Center for Urban Populations and Health, which consists of the UW Medical School, UWM and Aurora Health Care, who work together to promote the health of urban communities through education and service research.

However, when it came to funding for a future School of Public Health in Milwaukee, “no one could come up with sources,” Ourmazd said. “Of course it’s a good idea, but where does the money come from?”

October wasn’t the first time the idea of developing a School of Public Health was brought to the table. Ourmazd said it is brought up periodically, with the most recent discussion stimulated by Madison’s proposed name change.

But in Madison, it came as a shock when Milwaukee asked for reconsideration of the name change with desire to establish its own school.

“We were surprised,” said Phillip Farrell, dean of UW Medical School. “This has been part of the regents’ approved plan for the last three years.”

Farrell said the regents approved the plan, which made no secret of the desire to develop into a school of public health, in April 2002 and approved the annual report last May, but no one made any arguments until October, when the change was to be finalized.

The collaborative review will be presented on Tuesday, Nov. 8, and the final name-change decision will be made at the next meeting, Nov. 10 and 11.

If the name change is approved, it would be the final step toward implementing the element of public health into the medical school. It would not mean the establishment of a school of public health.

UW already has a strong medical school, and, “if you add in the public health component, it’s a significant step further with trying to establish real solutions,” said Jon Sender, UW Medical School spokesman.

While Milwaukee is supportive of Madison’s desire to produce doctors with training in public health, UWM Chancellor Carlos Santiago said he agreed with Barrett that a school of public health should be located in Milwaukee, according to the Board of Regents October 2005 news summary.

Santiago also said that while UWM has been working with the Medical College of Wisconsin to develop a joint doctorate program in public health, research is not translating to practice in southeastern Wisconsin.

“Bottom line: we will continue to do everything, and we welcome collaboration,” Ourmazd said. “But no fresh resources are available.”

Barrett’s call for the school to reside in Milwaukee was in response to Milwaukee being ranked as the seventh-poorest city in the nation with 41 percent of its children living in poverty.

> Comments