Student gov’t members defend UTRGV amid professor turnover concerns

The Student Government Association for the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley School of Medicine has issued a response to the concerns regarding professor turnover.

Sean Corcoran and Anjali Binoy, president and class representative for the association, respectively, signed their name to a letter defending the university Wednesday, calling into question the assertion that students were in an uproar — as reported Tuesday by MyRGV.com — over the departure of nearly 60 professors, many of whom are MDs, in the last several years.

The association has not responded to a request for comment since Monday and has yet to communicate with reporters directly, opting instead for UTRGV’s spokesman Patrick Gonzales, vice president of the university’s communications department, to submit the letter on their behalf and for consideration as a letter to the editor.

On Tuesday, MyRGV.com published a story about student concerns regarding fears of a lack of MD training given the departure of physician professors.

The concerns were expressed by a student who spoke under anonymity to protect their status at the institution, explaining that in recent years the school has seen an uptick in professor turnover with little transparency from the university about why their professors were leaving.

UTRGV issued a statement at the time attributing the loss of physicians to affiliation agreements ending with two local hospitals in 2022, and that the university has since recruited 30 faculty members and “onboarded 74 community clinicians.” Although the university has not specified how many of those clinicians are MDs.

In response to the story, Corcoran and Binoy stated in their letter: “… (It) is with urgency that we feel obligated to address the inaccurate content published yesterday in the “Professor turnover at UTRGV medical school sparks student concerns” article which “concerns us greatly.”

“The article states that students at our school are in an uproar over physician professor turnover after learning that one of their professors is departing, along with others, leaving them concerned about the effectiveness of their training, which couldn’t be further from the truth,” Corcoran and Binoy wrote.

But Corcoran and Binoy, who are first-year med students, also acknowledged the existence of said concerns and that the medical school’s interim dean — Dr. Everado Cobos, who’s stepping in for now-former Dean Dr. Michael Hocker — met with students to address them.

For this reason they disagreed with the transparency concerns expressed by the anonymous student who spoke with MyRGV.com, saying the dean and other school leaders practice an “open door policy” allowing students to have “honest” and “difficult” conversations with their administration.

In this undated photo, the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley School of Medicine is seen in Edinburg. (Courtesy: David Pike/UTRGV)

“Just a day after the students expressed concerns, we had already set up a meeting with Dr. Cobos and other involved deans to get concrete answers to the students’ concerns,” the association members wrote, confirming the very concerns they had previously denied existed in their letter. “This article was released as we drafted the email to give students answers to everything that they wanted clarity on.”

It’s the lack of initial transparency, however, that the student speaking on the condition of anonymity said that pressed them to come forward in the first place.

Like the statement provided by Gonzales, the SGA members concluded their response citing the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, or LCME, which approves accreditation for medical schools, in stating that the loss of faculty was “predominantly due” to the hospital affiliation agreements coming to an end.

They added that despite the changes, “students’ education and clinical training programs remain uncompromised regardless of evolving clinical affiliations.”

“We want to focus on celebrating our sixth class graduating this weekend, who will be joining the over 300 graduates to date who are training and completing residency programs here, across Texas, and the US, becoming ambassadors to what the School of Medicine represents here and beyond,” Corcoran and Binoy wrote.

The post Student gov’t members defend UTRGV amid professor turnover concerns appeared first on MyRGV.com.