I just came across this “news” on SDN, it happened in July, 2018.
Here is what the poster said:
“I’m a first year student at RVU having just started this week. The president of RVU gave an announcement that RVU is being acquired by Medforth, which is the parent company that also owns Saint George University in Grenada. As many of you may know, SGU is the stereotypical Caribbean model for medical schools; ie high attrition low match rate. My fear is that the Caribbean model will be implemented at RVU and the education I receive will be changed for the worse.”
Any further insight on this? It is one of the fallacy to be in a for profit organization-- your school may not be the same after acquisition.
My recollection is that RVU opened as the first for-profit medical school(osteopathic) in the US; several others have followed. So can’t confirm the above, but not sure what difference it would make, as it would simply be a case of a for-profit entity being purchased by another for-profit entity.
There are 4 for-profit US med schools: Cal Northstate (MD), RVU (campuses in CO and UT), Idaho COM (In Meridan, ID) and Burrell COM (in Las Cruces, NM)
Medforth has been looking into expanding into the US since 2015. The company has hired some top guns in the medical business, including Dr. Andrew Sussman as CEO. Sussman is a Harvard educated physician, former CEO of UMass Med Center, and former president of MinuteClinic. With an influx of cash from new investors in 2016, the easiest way for Medforth to get foothold in the US was to buy an established medical school.
Addiitionally, the RVU’s chairman is elderly, in poor health and has no established heirs. At the Fall 2017 meeting of the Board of Trustees, the Board and the Chairman decided that it was better to sell now than to wait for a crisis which would require selling the school to settle the Chairman’s estate.
So a company with plenty of available cash and expertise in managing for profit medical schools + a established for profit medical school looking to sell = an ideal match
COCA has oversight of all osteopathic med schools and it has rules/regulations that DO schools are required to follow. If RVU starts to have Caribbean-like attrition rates, it will get lose its accreditation PDQ.
I am not worrying about RVU change its status to have Caribbean-like traits. However, they will funnel Caribbean rotations through the conection with RVU, perhaps that is the real reason Medforth acquired RVU, in addition to financial reasons.