In public academia, there’s a simple solution when a program shows extreme inefficiency—give it more money! That may be the case with East Carolina University’s Brody School of Medicine. An outside consultant has found some costly activities that are clearly capable of being fixed, yet the university system is asking for more money without any strings and the Governor has proposed giving it to them.
But inefficiency may not be Brody’s biggest problem. That is likely to be mission creep. It was never intended that Brody have all the latest shiny toys that impress politicians—it was sold to taxpayers that it would fill the prosaic but necessary task of training primary care physicians. Yet it has been training many students for specialties such as neurology (who then leave eastern North Carolina for more lucrative locales).
Former Squall Lines blogger R.E. Smith writes about Brody’s problems and the fact that a diet may be more appropriate than an increase in its lunch money.