Seton Hall-Hackensack Meridian medical school can now recruit students

CLIFTON/NUTLEY —New Jersey's newest medical school — the Seton Hall-Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine — can begin recruiting students for admission later this year.

A decision Wednesday by a national accreditation body means that the charter class of 55 students could arrive on campus at the former Hoffmann-La Roche site as early as this summer.

While medical school applications for 2018 are well underway nationally, potential applicants can be notified of new slots available within a matter of days.

The school plans a total enrollment of 500, with class size increasing as it completes the multi-year process of full accreditation.

The Liaison Committee on Medical Education, part of the Association of American Medical Colleges, gave the New Jersey medical school preliminary accreditation this week during its meeting in Chicago. Two more steps over the next four years would lead to full accreditation.

"We are thrilled that our vision for a new approach to medical education is becoming a reality," Hackensack Meridian Health said in a statement. "We are creating a rigorous academic curriculum that combines traditional science with a focus on the new frontiers in medicine — prevention and population health, genetics, and team-based care delivery in communities."

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Each first-year student is to be introduced to two or three local families with medical needs, whom they will follow over the course of three years. The goal is "to understand that health and wellness don't happen in the doctor's office or hospital, they happen out in the community," Dr. Bonita Stanton, the school's founding dean, said in a previous interview.

"We want them to understand how robust their role can be as advocates for patients and the community," said Stanton, who has broad experience as a pediatrician in disadvantaged communities and developing countries.

The school also will emphasize the role of physicians as part of a health care team, a focus made possible by Seton Hall University's relocation of its nursing program and School of Health and Medical Sciences to the Clifton-Nutley campus.

This week's approval "is an essential requirement and great accomplishment in the complex process of establishing a new medical school," Seton Hall officials said.

Ten committees have been working on the accreditation application, Stanton said. Clinical faculty, mostly drawn from the Hackensack Meridian Health system and its affiliated hospitals, are being hired.

The school is the fifth in New Jersey. It aims to address a looming physician shortage, particularly for primary-care doctors. The partnership of a hospital system and a private university is unique in the state.

The latest approval also is important to plans for the redevelopment of the entire former Hoffmann-La Roche site on Route 3 on the Clifton-Nutley border. After Roche announced its closure in 2012, the 116-acre site was later purchased by Prism Capital Partners of Bloomfield and renamed On3.

Redevelopment of the site over several phases is expected to generate hundreds of jobs.

The New Jersey Economic Development Authority, through its New Jersey Assistance Program, recently enticed biotech firm Modern Meadow to move its headquarters to the site from Brooklyn.

Quest Diagnostics and Ralph Lauren Corp. have similar state offers on the table.

"We're thrilled with their preliminary accreditation," said Nutley Mayor Joseph Scarpelli, whose township recently approved the school's preliminary site plan.

"Hopefully, it keeps them on track to enroll their first class this fall."

Email: washburn@northjersey.com