KANSAS CITY, Kan. -
Tight state budgets aren't just affecting what happens in metro classrooms. A slashed budget could change the way the University of Kansas Medical Center trains would-be doctors and nurses. It could also change the search for a cancer cure.
Compared to last year, KU Med Center has about $14 million less to pay staff, train doctors and nurses and earn National Cancer Institute designation.
Cheryl Jernigan beat breast cancer 14 years ago and changed her life.
"So as a result, I call myself a thriver, trying to get the most from the experience as possible," Jernigan said.
Now she is bringing courage to others.
"My motto was 'ca-ca happens and flowers do grow from it,'" she said with a laugh.
Jernigan serves as chair of an advancement board, which is working on KU Med Center's National Cancer Institute, or NCI, designation.
It would, among other things, allow the medical center to participate in additional clinical trials.
"So that's a benefit to you, or your family, or the region to have those things available. Today people have to travel outside the area," Ed Phillips, the medical center's Vice Chancellor for Administration said.
Phillips said the Med Center has had to cut 15 faculty positions, which could lead to fewer admissions of medical and nursing students.
"We're still committed to it," Phillips said. "But those kinds of reductions have some sort of negative effect on the speed in which we can achieve our goal.
Still Jernigan is hopeful the flowers will bloom and that KU Med Center will lead the charge against cancer with an NCI designation.
"It gives us more knowledge than we would have had otherwise, and more access to the kinds of information and hopefully treatments that we need to have," Jernigan said.
The University of Kansas Medical Center has until September 2011 to apply for NCI designation. Currently the closest NCI designated medical centers are in St. Louis and Omaha.
Compared to last year, KU Med Center has about $14 million less to pay staff, train doctors and nurses and earn National Cancer Institute designation.
Cheryl Jernigan beat breast cancer 14 years ago and changed her life.
"So as a result, I call myself a thriver, trying to get the most from the experience as possible," Jernigan said.
Now she is bringing courage to others.
"My motto was 'ca-ca happens and flowers do grow from it,'" she said with a laugh.
Jernigan serves as chair of an advancement board, which is working on KU Med Center's National Cancer Institute, or NCI, designation.
It would, among other things, allow the medical center to participate in additional clinical trials.
"So that's a benefit to you, or your family, or the region to have those things available. Today people have to travel outside the area," Ed Phillips, the medical center's Vice Chancellor for Administration said.
Phillips said the Med Center has had to cut 15 faculty positions, which could lead to fewer admissions of medical and nursing students.
"We're still committed to it," Phillips said. "But those kinds of reductions have some sort of negative effect on the speed in which we can achieve our goal.
Still Jernigan is hopeful the flowers will bloom and that KU Med Center will lead the charge against cancer with an NCI designation.
"It gives us more knowledge than we would have had otherwise, and more access to the kinds of information and hopefully treatments that we need to have," Jernigan said.
The University of Kansas Medical Center has until September 2011 to apply for NCI designation. Currently the closest NCI designated medical centers are in St. Louis and Omaha.
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