JOHNSON CITY (March 12, 2013) –The road to forming an academic health sciences center (AHSC) isn’t necessarily an easy one, but a new book aims to make the path smoother for aspiring universities with advice from recognized authorities on the subject – including two at East Tennessee State University.

Drs. Wilsie S. Bishop and David Linville are co-authors of a chapter in “Confluence of Policy and Leadership in Academic Health Sciences Centers,” which includes expertise on various components of this higher education model that aligns an academic entity with a clinical one. Bishop is vice president for Health Affairs and university chief operating officer at ETSU, and Linville is associate dean for Graduate Medical Education at ETSU’s James H. Quillen College of Medicine.

With colleges of medicine, pharmacy, nursing, public health, and clinical and rehabilitative health sciences, East Tennessee State University’s AHSC is one of the most comprehensive in the nation in terms of academic programming scope, and it is the largest AHSC between Roanoke, Va., and Memphis. ETSU is the flagship health sciences institution for the Tennessee Board of Regents.

Bishop, who serves on the board of directors of the Association of Academic Health Centers, has been instrumental in developing policies for students, faculty and staff at ETSU. She and Linville – who, in addition to his leadership at the College of Medicine, has worked closely with the ETSU Office of Rural and Community Health and Community Partnerships – contribute a chapter on trainee and student policies for AHSCs. Establishing clear, comprehensive policies, they write, provides parameters for students and trainees that promote safe clinical practice, consistency in educational oversight and guidelines for acceptable standards of behavior.

“The process of getting people with different perspectives around a table to discuss and solve problems is a rewarding experience and a necessary one for an academic health sciences center,” Bishop said. “It’s a practice that engages and empowers people. At ETSU, our policies have helped our students become more aware of their own personal responsibility and accountability when it comes to patient care.”

As associate dean at Quillen, Linville is responsible for the ETSU program that provides residency training for primary care and specialty physicians.

“Being an academic health sciences center, we continually strive to provide the best education for our trainees,” Linville said. “Consideration of the relationship between policy and leadership is an important aspect of ensuring the best learning environment possible.”