Pre-med students with their sights on YU medical school encountered a twist on the road from B.A. to M.D. this May, when the university announced a merger between its Albert Einstein College of Medicine and New York’s Montefiore Health System. Students wondering how the merger will impact the educational experience at Einstein can be assured that changes will largely be operational and not academic.
Elisa Karp, 24, is entering her second year at Einstein this fall, after graduating from Stern College in 2013. She plans on going into pediatrics and did research this summer for the pediatric emergency department at the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore.
She isn’t too concerned about the merger, which cedes $100 million of the university’s debt to Montefiore.
“We know Montefiore is taking a greater financial role, but YU is still the degree-granting institution,” she said. “My diploma is still going to have ‘Yeshiva University’ on it.”
She also said that e-mails sent to Einstein students about the merger gave the impression that the changes will largely impact faculty, not students.
Dr. Stephen G. Baum, Senior Associate Dean for Students at Einstein, confirmed this point. He also noted that “Yeshiva students will be admitted as they have been in the past” and that “(d)ietary laws and religious holidays will be observed.”
Dean Bacon shed further light on the post-merger application process to Einstein, noting that SCW’s pre-med advisor “has been working all summer long on the current crop of students that will be applying next year, and the procedures are the same as they’ve been in the past in terms of applying to various medical school, including applying to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.”
Dean Bacon also said that the Anne Scheiber scholarship will not be impacted by the merger. A prize much vied for by SCW pre-meds, the scholarship awards up to full tuition to Stern students applying to Einstein.
When asked if the merger might even benefit students by providing access to more resources, Dean Bacon said that while she doesn’t know for sure, “anytime you’re with a bigger organization you can make…a legitimate speculation that there will be more opportunities.”
Even if the merger won’t tangibly impact SCW students, it could do damage to morale. A Wall Street Journal article this summer about the university’s financial woes quoted an alumna who expressed the view that the merger wasn’t a good idea, because Einstein was the “gem in the crown” of the university.
But Dean Bacon says that students need not worry, as YU’s commitment to first-rate academics, education, and students has not changed amidst the recent institutional changes.
Karp is optimistic too. Her parents and siblings have attended Yeshiva University and she describes it as a “family institution.”
“I hope that it will be around for a long time,” she said. “And until I hear otherwise, I am going to believe that it will be.”