Medical School

Medical education in Nevada has been a contentious issue for forty years.  People are constantly choosing up sides to see which area of the state or which group or groups in those areas are best suited to develop Nevada’s medical education system.  The discussions have all been pre-mature, and in no way relevant to develop and reach a plan that works.  Before any structural program can be developed, the sources for funding those programs must be examined.  Medical schools cost a fortune to build and a fortune to operate.  At the moment Nevada has neither.  Medical schools are built from the top down.  Without a major donor, the possibility of a medical school becoming a major medical education provider is impossible.  I give you the following examples of the individual gifts to medical schools that were essential to build the schools.  The donations to the University of Nevada medical school for more than $1,000,000 have been few and far between.  You can count them on one hand.  We better take first things first.  Where do we get the money?

Weill Medical College of Cornell U. (NY)                                                $250 million

Univ. of Pennsylvania, Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Med.    $225 million

Mount Sinai School of Medicine (NY)                                                      $150 million

Brown U., Warren Alpert Foundation (Providence, R.I.)                          $100 million

Univ. of Calif., Los Angeles, David Geffen School of Medicine                $100 million

Univ. of Calif., San Francisco Children’s Hospital                                    $100 million

Univ. of Texas Southwestern Med. Ctr., Southwestern Med. Fdn.            $100 million

Western Michigan U. (Kalamazoo)                                                           $100 million

Georgetown University (Washington D.C.)                                                 $87 million

Univ. of Calif., San Diego                                                                            $75 million

Kerkorian

Kirk Kerkorian has been one of the major business leaders and profit creators in the history of the entire United States.  He’s bought and sold companies that had net worths greater than many of this planet’s countries.  And yet, while we’ve made efforts to get him to invest major sums in Nevada’s higher education, we’ve failed.  He hasn’t failed us, we have failed us.

Failed To Get The Support

Jerry Herbst has a cash flow that probably equals that of the U.S. government, and while he is certainly aware of the value of higher education (he’s a graduate of USC), Nevada’s higher education system has not been able to enlist the financial support from him that could have made any one or many of the UNLV programs world class.  He has failed to step forward.  Why did we fail to get his support as we seem to have failed to get the support of every other wealthy Southern Nevadan?

Best In The World

Everyone knows that Sheldon and Miriam Adelson are among the twenty wealthiest people in the world.  Their income was reputed to be three million dollars an hour.  They’re good citizens who support good causes.  And yet, for reasons I don’t understand, the Adelsons have not contributed to the higher education system in Nevada in those areas where they have a special interest.  Mrs. Adelson is a medical doctor, and with her knowledge and her wealth, the medical programs in Nevada’s higher education system could have been made the best in the world.

Why did we fail?

Southern Nevada probably has one of the greatest concentrations of wealthy families.  The Fertittas are among that group.  They have been staunch supporters of every philanthropic project in Southern Nevada.  Their support of Gorman High School has not been matched.  And yet, while many of us thought the Fertittas were going to make the UNLV College of Business world class by contributing fifty million dollars to it, that money seems to have gone to the University of Southern California.  Why did we fail?

Inspire

Steve and Elaine Wynn, more than any other persons, have made me and my wife wealthy.  When Steve, one of the creative geniuses of this world, decided to build major hotels on the Strip, everything changed, including everything in my life.  Never would I criticize any of the financial ventures in which they’re involved.  But I do question why Las Vegas has been unable to inspire these two magnets to build a world class university system.

Your Children’s Failures

If you want to take a sample to determine what the Clark County School District problems are, you need only look at the school board itself.  Your children don’t have a chance when their lives are controlled by this group of incompetent, uneducated, unsophisticated, unimaginative, lazy, unproductive egomaniacs.  I could go on for pages that describe the multitude of reasons that their actions have been the direct cause of your children’s failures.