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14 Hartford Business Journal • August 31, 2015 www.HartfordBusiness.com from page 1 "Without our students, we are nothing. They energize us and make us who we are," Liang said. "We are not short on qualified students. It is a matter of training the ones that we have." Liang started as dean June 12, taking over following the November resignation of Dr. Frank Torti. As part of a new strategy, UConn President Susan Herbst split Torti's former job into two separate roles: A dean to over- see education and research and an executive vice president for health affairs, who over- sees clinical care and patient experience for the UConn Health system. Liang was named permanent dean after filling an interim role since November. The split position aims to give the dean and executive vice president clarity of focus in administering the increasing responsibilities of the UConn Health Center, said Dr. Andrew Agwunobi, who is serving as interim execu- tive vice president. His position is expected to be filled permanently by the end of the year. "My focus every day is 100 percent on the clinical enterprise," Agwunobi said. "That allows the dean to focus on making sure this remains a premier institution with fantastic research." Liang said his immediate focus is hiring new faculty members, especially those who have grant-funded research or promising research that will soon be grant-worthy. He said finding the right people will help him achieve both his educational and Bioscience Connecticut goals. The UConn School of Medicine currently has $82 million in grant funding for various research projects, including $52 million in federal money. Liang wants to reach $100 mil- lion in grants over the next five years. That extra money not only directly funds new research but provides UConn the ability to make facility maintenance and improvements that, in turn, will attract more researchers, Liang said. That research has the ability to spin off new patents — which create royalty revenue for the university — and potentially new startup companies to grow Connecticut's bioscience industry. "That is all part of the governor's vision to use biomedicine to stimulate the econ- omy," Liang said. "My role is to implement that vision, to do the best we can with the opportunities." Collaborative efforts Liang said he is working with Jackson Laboratory in Farmington to entice research- ers to UConn, since the two facilities can work in conjunction to develop patent- and startup-worthy research. Already, Jackson and UConn have spun off two startups to the UConn Technology Incubation Program: UConn Health faculty member Annabelle Rodriguez-Oquendo is conducting clinical trials on a cholesterol drug for her startup Lipid Genomics, and Jackson Lab researcher Frank McKeon is developing lung and stomach disease thera- pies for MutliClonal Therapeutics. "The research part of Bioscience Con- necticut is already reaping some benefits in terms of new companies," Liang said. Adding new faculty members with research grants also enables the school to increase its class size. UConn School of Medicine has a 4:1 ratio of faculty to students, which the school needs to retain if it is going to move up the U.S. News & World Report rankings of the best medical schools, which is a key metric for Liang, he said. Two years ago, the school of medicine increased its class size to 98 from 89. Sometime after 2017, Liang said he wants to increase class size to 110 pupils, which would be a 24 percent increase from two years ago. Growing its enrollment ranks, however, requires hiring more faculty and increasing clinic and hospital sites for students to get their four-year degrees and become doctors. UConn receives 3,000 applications annually for its medical school, Liang said, so finding qualified candidates isn't an issue. Once the school can increase class size to 110 pupils, it will rank somewhere in the mid- dle of the 145 U.S. medical schools in terms of class size, Liang said. Stemming doc decline Boosting class size isn't only about improv- ing national rankings. Medical schools across the U.S. must graduate 90,000 doctors over the next 10 years to avoid a physician short- age by 2030, Liang said. Young doctors are particularly important to solving the pending shortage since 31 per- cent of all doctors nationwide are aged 60 or older, up from the 26 percent who were in that age range in 2012, according to a census by the Federation of State Medical Boards. For Connecticut to avoid a shortage, UConn and the other state medical schools must graduate more students, and hospitals and other healthcare institutions must make room for additional residencies and fellow- ships, said Matthew Katz, CEO and execu- tive vice president of the Connecticut State Medical Society. Complicating the state's potential work- force shortage: Connecticut has one of the worst climates in the nation for practicing medicine, Katz said, because of poor mal- practice laws, high cost of living, and lack of incentives for graduating doctors, such as loan-forgiveness programs for physicians who practice in underserved specialties or areas. "Residents and fellows don't train here," Katz said. "We run the risks of training more doctors but losing more to other states." Patient-care physicians in Connecti- cut generate $16.6 billion in annual sales revenue, $9.7 billion in wages and benefits, $764 million in state and local taxes, and 101,472 direct and indirect jobs, according to a study by Danbury information provid- er IMS Health. Each doctor practicing in Connecticut generates 9.9 direct and indirect jobs in the state, so losing even a handful of physicians will have significant impact on Connecticut's economy, Katz said. It would also exacerbate a potential workforce shortage. Lesson refresh Liang — who oversees 3,000 students, residents, fellows and faculty members — also wants to improve and update the medi- cal school's curriculum, which has remained largely unchanged in the last 20 years. One method is to blend disease and clini- cal conditions curriculum with science- based principles, Liang said. For example, instead of teaching students all the anato- my they need to know in one semester, have them learn the body parts as they treat con- ditions — such as examining the brains of stroke victims. "You align the disease with the treat- ment of the body," Liang said. "Students will remember better. As they dissect the brain, they can learn the anatomy." Liang is a cardiologist by trade and most recently served as the director of the UConn Pat & Jim Calhoun Center for Cardiology. He said he was attracted to the specialty because many of the treatments for heart conditions show strong improvements. "I like to see results," Liang said. His position at UConn enabled him to do heart research, which lead to a deeper under- standing of how that impacts the healthcare industry. "That is symbolic of what is unique here," Liang said. "People can apply their research and see how it can improve patients' lives." n Med school wants to fill doctor shortage C ompared to other metro areas across the country, Greater Hart- ford's most concentrated profession may come as no surprise. For at least the fifth year in a row, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics said the Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford metro area is the most saturated with actuaries. The metro area — comprised of Hartford County and parts of Tolland and Middlesex counties — employed 900 actuaries as of May 2014, according to BLS' Occupational Employment Statistics survey, which includes the results of six semiannual surveys from 2011 to May 2014. Actuaries in the region were 10 times more concentrated than the national average, according to BLS data. Greater Hartford actuaries earned a mean hourly wage of $55.20, up from $54.48 in 2013 and $48.43 in 2010. Overall, pay in Greater Hartford averaged $26.72 per hour, up from $26.41 the year prior. Nationwide average pay was $22.71 per hour, 18 percent below Greater Hartford's average wage. That disparity is not a huge sur- prise as Connecticut's cost of living is higher than most of the rest of the nation. Regionally, workers in the Boston-Cambridge-Quincy Mass. sub- sector had an average hourly wage of $30.77 in May 2014. The second most concentrated profession in Greater Hartford last year was insurance underwriters, who numbered 2,850 and earned an average hourly wage of $44.05, BLS said. The highest-paid position was surgeons who earned $104.97 per hour. These statistics are from the Occupational Employment Statistics (OES) survey, a joint program between BLS and state Department of Labor. n Occupational employment and wages by major occupational group Percent of total employment Mean hourly wage United United Percent Major occupational group States Hartford States Hartford difference Total, all occupations 100% 100% $22.71 $26.72 18% Management 5% 7.4% $54.08 $57.70 7% Business and Financial Operations 5.1% 6.7% $34.81 $37.34 7% Computer and Mathematical 2.8% 3.7% $40.37 $41.52 3% Architecture and Engineering 1.8% 2.1% $39.19 $39.94 2% Life, Physical, and Social Science 0.8% 0.7% $33.69 $36.12 7% Community and Social Services 1.4% 2.2% $21.79 $25.03 15% Legal 0.8% 1.2% $48.61 $47.30 -3% Healthcare Practitioner and Technical 5.8% 6.3% $36.54 $40.08 10% Healthcare Support 2.9% 3% $13.86 $16.49 19% Sales and Related 10.5% 9.1% $18.59 $20.07 8% Construction and Extraction 3.9% 3.0% $22.40 $25.39 13% S O U R C E : U . S . B U R E A U O F L A B O R S T A T I S T I C S Greater Hartford's most concentrated profession: actuaries

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