NUTLEY, NJ — The Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine at Seton Hall University, the only private medical school to open in New Jersey, is now accepting applications for its first class to begin in July at the Clifton and Nutley campus, located 12 miles from Manhattan.
“Dynamic changes in health care require a new approach to medical education and we are thrilled to announce that we are now accepting applications from so many talented and high achieving students,” said Robert C. Garrett, co-CEO of Hackensack Meridian Health.
Additionally, the Hackensack Meridian Health Board of Trustees recently voted to establish a $100 million endowment fund for scholarships to the school, fulfilling a high priority to ensure top students can afford a medical education, Garrett said.
The first class of 55 students will begin July 9 in the new school, which aims to address the shortage of physicians in New Jersey. It will forge a new path in medical education to address profound changes that have resulted in more community-based health care and an increased focus on wellness and population health.
Along with opening the School of Medicine, Seton Hall University will relocate its College of Nursing and School of Health and Medical Sciences to create an Interprofessional Health Sciences campus in Nutley and Clifton this spring, Seton Hall interim President Mary Meehan said.
“For many years Seton Hall University has had exemplary programs in science and health education,” Meehan said. “These medical students will learn to be doctors in an innovative environment that combines their training, Seton Hall’s nationally recognized programs in nursing and other health-related fields, and access to Hackensack Meridian Health’s broad network.”
Students will train in a number of Hackensack Meridian Health’s 16 hospitals, four of which are among the top 10 in New Jersey — including the No. 1 ranked Hackensack University Medical Center, so ranked according to U.S. News & World Report.
Research shows that physicians often practice where they train, which would help the state ease a shortage of an estimated 3,000 doctors in New Jersey by 2020.
Additionally, the innovative curriculum will help future physicians navigate major changes in health care that are under way in the United States, including the transition to value-based care in which physicians and hospitals are paid to keep people well. It’s a major shift from fee-for-service medicine in which providers are paid for each treatment and procedure.
The strategy is essential to improve outcomes and lower the cost of care as the nation faces an epidemic of diabetes and other chronic disease, which is costly and in many cases preventable. Even though the U.S. spends far more than virtually all nations, it lags behind peer nations in all major areas of health, including maternal and infant health and life expectancy. This new approach aims to eliminate disparities in health outcome by closely coordinating care and intervening earlier when problems develop.
“Our goal is to maximize health in all of the communities we serve, a goal best achieved through an interdisciplinary approach based on an understanding that health and wellness, as well as disease and sickness, occur where people live, work and play,” said Dr. Bonita Stanton, founding dean medical school. “We are humanizing health care.”
Medical students will develop partnerships with families living in stressed communities and work with them to jointly understand and overcome factors that can impede or contribute to well-being, ranging from access to grocery stores to taking advantage of new developments in telemedicine
The new school is also unique in that it offers a three-year program, one of only a dozen or so in the nation to take this approach, which can significantly lower the cost of a medical education.
“We are thrilled to have reached this milestone and are we eager to continue to serve this great mission to enhance medical education in New Jersey,” said Joseph Simunovich, chairman of the school’s Board of Trustees.
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