Santiago Gaughan/The Cougar
It is no secret UH has long been considered a commuter school. However, the new medical school, redesigns of old buildings and the new law center will help bolster the educational and living experience for UH students as well as allow them to be better prepared when entering the professional workforce.
While the medical school has already admitted a limited amount of students back in July of last year, the medical school has not yet attained full LCME accreditation, only a preliminary accreditation.
While this may sound less exciting, the University’s medical school will still grant medical students an M.D. degree.
It will just be a general practitioner M.D. degree rather than a specialist M.D. degree. But the steps to specialize medical students in their areas of interest are already being taken.
A new College of Medicine building will be finished by the summer of 2022 that will expand medical students’ choices for their general practitioner M.D. degrees and full LCME accreditation is to be expected by 2024.
Having a specialist M.D. degree in the workforce is critical to remaining competitive in a job market as demanding as the field of medicine. Having the LCME accreditation will allow for the University to continue delivering healthcare specialists to a city that direly needs them.
Secondly, having a full LCME accreditation will raise the University’s overall prestige at the international level. UH already has a sizeable population of 3,619 international students currently enrolled this fall semester.
Having a fully accredited LCME Medical School in the nation’s fourth-largest city, near the largest medical center in the world is sure to attract many more international students’ attention.
Lastly, having a Medical School for a specialist M.D. degree will most likely bring about more opportunities for scholarships and internships both in-state and out-of-state.
Not to mention, students who graduate from the Medical School as specialists positively impact Houston’s medicinal industry, adding an overall economic boost back into the city.
The options for non-medicine students on this campus are growing too. The new John M. O’Quinn Law Center will open its doors by 2022. The center will have many more opportunities for students to specialize in the areas of law they are most passionate about, creating more Houston-based lawyers that will define the nation’s future legal system at the state as well as national level.
These two projects will bring notoriety to UH, which will benefit all students regardless of whether they pursue a law or medical degree.
Students, especially those local to Houston should be excited for years to come in how UH will positively affect the local and national economy.
JJ Caceres is a political science freshman who can be reached at [email protected]
