DealBook: Hedge Fund Seeks Ouster of SandRidge Energy's Board

A New York hedge fund filed papers with federal securities regulators on Wednesday seeking to oust the board at SandRidge Energy, the latest salvo in its continuing campaign against the struggling Oklahoma City oil and gas company.

The hedge fund, TPG-Axon Capital Management, which owns nearly 7 percent of SandRidge’s shares, submitted so-called consent solicitation documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission, offering up its own slate of directors to replace the current board.

SandRidge has come under pressure by TPG-Axon and another large hedge fund, Mount Kellett Capital Management, which have attacked the company over what they called an onerous debt load, reckless spending and incoherent business strategy.

TPG-Axon’s securities filing came two days after it sent a blistering letter to SandRidge’s board, demanding that it investigate whether Tom L. Ward, SandRidge’s chief executive, and his son had engaged in self-dealing and had directly competed with the company.

“It is our understanding that Mr. Ward and his son, Trent Ward, actively compete with the company, and in addition, have also engaged in repeated transactions in which they ‘front-run’ the company,” Dinakar Singh, chief executive of TPG-Axon, wrote in the letter. “It is astonishing that the C.E.O. of a company would engage in behavior that directly competes with his shareholders’ interests for his own personal benefit.”

The letter accuses the Wards of acquiring mineral rights and then leasing those rights to SandRidge for a profit. In securities filings this year, SandRidge said it had bought interests in mineral rights from an entity owned by Ward family trusts.

A spokesman for SandRidge, Greg Dewey, did not return telephone calls seeking comment.

SandRidge’s shares are down more than 75 percent since its 2007 initial public offering and more than 90 percent since its peak in June 2008. The stock was flat in Wednesday’s session, closing at $6.26.

TPG-Axon’s S.E.C. filing was made in conjunction with a lawsuit filed on Monday in the Delaware Court of Chancery. The lawsuit challenges a move by SandRidge to shorten the time that shareholders have to vote on changing the company’s bylaws and replacing the board with TPG-Axon’s slate.

“Sadly, we are not surprised that Tom Ward and the board of directors have resorted to shameful tricks to try and confuse shareholders and shorten the period of time in which they have to vote,” Mr. Singh said in a statement. “The actions Tom and the board have taken over the past several weeks reek of desperation and clearly illustrate their complete disregard for shareholder interests and transparency.”

The solicitation by TPG-Axon will be sent in early January to SandRidge shareholders, who would then have up to 60 days to consent to the fund’s proposal to elect a new board, which would include Mr. Singh.

Much of TPG-Axon’s criticism has been aimed at Mr. Ward. Mr. Ward started SandRidge in 2006 after leaving Chesapeake Energy, a much larger Oklahoma oil-and-gas concern that he co-founded and has had its own share of corporate governance issues in recent years. He is a part-owner of the Oklahoma City Thunder professional basketball franchise along with Aubrey McClendon, a co-founder of Chesapeake and its chief executive.

Mr. Ward’s total compensation in 2011 was $25 million, representing about half of the company’s earnings that year. SandRidge bestows numerous perks upon Mr. Ward, including the unlimited use of the company’s four corporate jets.

A version of this article appeared in print on 12/27/2012, on page B3 of the NewYork edition with the headline: In Escalation of Attack, Hedge Fund Seeks Ouster of SandRidge Energy’s Board.

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Russian Parliament Sends Adoption Ban to Putin

MOSCOW — The upper chamber of Parliament on Wednesday unanimously approved a bill to ban adoptions of Russian children by United States citizens, sending the measure to President Vladimir V. Putin, who has voiced support but not yet said if he will sign it.

Enactment of the adoption ban, which was developed in retaliation for an American law punishing Russians accused of violating human rights, would be the most severe blow yet to relations between Russia and the United States in a year marked by a series of setbacks.

Since Mr. Putin returned to the presidency in May, Russian officials have used a juggernaut of legislation and executive decisions to curtail United States influence and involvement in Russia, undoing major partnerships that began after the fall of the Soviet Union.

In September, the Kremlin ordered the United States Agency for International Development to cease operations here, shutting a wide portfolio of public health, civil society and other initiatives. And officials announced plans to terminate a joint effort to dismantle nuclear, chemical and other nonconventional weapons known as the Nunn-Lugar agreement.

Russia also passed a law requiring nonprofit groups that get financing from abroad to register as “foreign agents,” sharply curtailing the ability of the United States to work with good-government groups, and another law broadening the definition of treason to include “providing financial, technical, advisory or other assistance to a foreign state or international organization.”

The adoption ban, however, is the first step that takes direct aim at the American public and would effectively undo a bilateral agreement on international adoptions that took effect on Nov. 1. The agreement called for heightened oversight in response to several high-profile cases of abuse and deaths of adopted Russian children in the United States.

About 1,000 Russian children were adopted by parents from the United States in 2011, more than any other country, and more than 45,000 such children have been adopted by American parents since 1999.

Pavel Astakhov, Russia’s child rights commissioner, told news agencies on Wednesday that the ban, if enacted, could prevent the departure of 46 children who are ready to be adopted by parents from the United States. Some of those adoptions have already received court approval, he said. And some lawmakers said they believed that the bilateral agreement on adoptions with the United States would be void as of Jan. 1, even though Mr. Putin, at his annual news conference last week, said that changes to the agreement required one-year notice by either side.

The proposed ban has opened a rare split at the highest levels of the Russian government, with several senior officials speaking out against it. And it has provoked a huge public outcry and debate, with critics of the ban saying that it would most hurt Russian orphans, many of whom are already suffering in the country’s deeply troubled foster care and orphanage system.

In debate on Wednesday, lawmakers said that they felt an imperative to retaliate for a law signed by President Obama this month that will punish Russian citizens accused of violating human rights, by prohibiting them from traveling to the United States and from owning real estate or other assets there.

Lawmakers also said that Russia, which has more than 650,000 children living without parental supervision, should take care of them on its own. The vote in the Federation Council was 143 to 0.

“We need to set a plan for the future,” said Valery V. Ryazanksy, a senator from the Kursk region. Then, reiterating a slogan adopted by many lawmakers in recent days, he declared: “Russia without orphans!” Gennady I. Makin, a senator from Veronezh, gave it a slight twist: “Russia without orphanages.”

Several child-welfare advocates have mocked this sort of talk, noting that more than 80,000 children were identified as in need of supervision in 2011 and that the country had been unable to find homes for a vast majority of children eligible for adoption.

There were slightly more than 10,000 adoptions in Russia in 2011, about 3,400 of which were by foreigners.

In addition to banning adoptions by Americans, the bill approved on Wednesday would impose sanctions on American judges and others accused of violating the rights of adopted Russian children in the United States.

A number of cases involving the abuse or even the deaths of adopted Russian children in recent years have generated publicity and outrage in Russia, including a case in which a 7-year-old boy was sent on a flight back to Russia alone by his adoptive mother in Tennessee.

The Russian law was named for Dmitri Yakovlev, a toddler who died of heatstroke in Virginia in 2008, after his adoptive father left him in a parked car for nine hours. The father, Miles Harrison, was acquitted of manslaughter by a judge who ruled that the death was an accident.

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Gadgetwise Blog: In Speaker Dock, a Minimalist Home for the iPhone 5

Capitalizing on the sudden need for iPhone 5 docking stations, Harman has released the JBL OnBeat Micro speaker dock that features the must-have Apple Lightning connector.

The $100 JBL OnBeat Micro is a redesigned version of its predecessor, the On Stage Micro. It still comes with an AC power adapter, which charges devices while they are docked, but the remote control was dropped.

The speaker dock is intended to be portable as well. It weighs less than a pound and is compact enough to fit in a purse or backpack. But its battery life offers only five hours of playback, which isn’t much. It’s probably better just to leave it plugged in.

The test unit that was sent to me for review did not include instructions, not that any were needed. It has only two buttons: power and volume. Pretty simple, right? You don’t have to synch, download or fiddle with anything.

I was able to dock my iPhone 5 without removing its case, but thicker cases might not fit, because the Lightning connector is nestled flush in the bottom of the recessed dock. The dock is too small to house the iPad, full or Mini, but a USB port and a 3.5mm audio input in the back can accommodate most devices.

For a small speaker, the JBL OnBeat Micro produces surprisingly good sound, which filled my living room, tiny as it is. Even at high volumes, I didn’t notice any distortion.

The JBL OnBeat Micro doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of its rivals. There is no Bluetooth capability, rechargeable battery, alarm clock, AM/FM radio or speakerphone. But it is one of the few on the market with a Lightning connector, which raises its profile considerably.

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One Illness After Another, and an Eviction Looming

As the water surged through the basement apartment of a Coney Island town house during Hurricane Sandy, Jeffrey Cowen, a cherubic and chatty sort, tried to calm down the two tenants who had remained with him in the building.

Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times

Jeffrey Cowen, 51, in his Coney Island apartment. His illnesses have led to his falling about $8,400 behind in his rent.

For the past 100 years, The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund has provided direct assistance to children, families and the elderly in New York. To celebrate the 101st campaign, an article will appear daily through Jan. 25. Each profile will illustrate the difference that even a modest amount of money can make in easing the struggles of the poor.

Last year donors contributed $7,003,854, which was distributed to those in need through seven New York charities.

2012-13 Campaign

Previously recorded:

$3,512,137

Recorded Friday:

302,605

*Total:

$3,814,742

Last year to date:

$3,648,728

*Includes $709,856 contributed to the Hurricane Sandy relief efforts.

The Youngest Donors

If your child or family is using creative techniques to raise money for this year’s campaign, we want to hear from you. Drop us a line on Facebook or talk to us on Twitter.

“The water is not here yet, and we have two more floors and the roof,” Mr. Cowen, 51, recalled telling them, as everybody stood in his first-floor studio apartment. “It’s not time to panic. Even if the water gets in here, we’re still not going to panic, because that’s how people get hurt.”

This levelheadedness seems to inform his attitude about his illnesses — spinal stenosis, diabetes, hypertension and heart problems. Mr. Cowen has been to the operating room enough, he said, that he has developed a “shtick”:

“I say to the doctors, ‘Listen up — Rule No. 1: I don’t want to hear “Oops!”

“ ‘Rule No. 2: I don’t want to hear: “Dr. Brown, we haven’t seen anything like this since med school.” ’ ”

Nonetheless, Mr. Cowen’s illnesses have led to his falling about $8,400 behind in his rent; he could face eviction proceedings beginning next month.

Mr. Cowen, a counselor at John V. Lindsay Wildcat Academy, a charter school for at-risk youth, was born in Washington Heights in Manhattan but grew up with two siblings in Portsmouth, Ohio.

Mr. Cowen’s father owned a pallet-making business located in Portsmouth and Columbus, Ohio. The business thrived until the main plant in Portsmouth burned to the ground, he said.

The family eventually received welfare benefits.

Mr. Cowen received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the Ohio State University, and another in political science from Antioch College. He went to Los Angeles after his five-year marriage ended in divorce. In 2000, an online relationship brought him to New York, and when the relationship ended, he stayed.

In 2007, he began feeling “a tingling down my spine.” An M.R.I. revealed that he had spinal stenosis, a narrowing of the spinal column that puts pressure on the cord. He had surgery to remove a piece of bone from his vertebrae to relieve pressure, he said.

In June 2010, he began feeling sick, and so run-down that he frequently missed work. When his sick days and vacation days were used up and he could not work, he had no income. About four months later, he had a heart attack, and had stents implanted. Because he had worked sporadically, he had fallen $3,300 behind in his rent and utilities, he said. Within nine months, he had recovered financially, he said.

“Around early fall of last year, I became weaker and weaker,” Mr. Cowen said. He exhausted his vacation and sick days and again began falling behind on his rent and bills. He said he did not seek medical care because disability payments would not be enough for him to make his rent. Being out of the hospital allowed him to work, if only intermittently.

“I popped children’s aspirin like M & M’s just to keep the blood flowing,” he said, but eventually he went to the hospital, where he found out he needed heart surgery — a triple bypass. He also found out that he had hypertension and diabetes.

Now, Mr. Cowen is back at work, trying to keep up with his rent and to pay his landlord extra each month to bring his rent current. He said he was relieved when he received assistance from the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, a beneficiary agency of UJA-Federation of New York, one of the organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. Met Council drew $1,387 from the fund to help him pay outstanding electric and heating bills.

Mr. Cowen is applying to various sources for ways to pay the back rent, but he said that soon his landlord might have to initiate eviction proceedings.

And while he acknowledges that sometimes the whole situation “feels like a house of cards,” he does not feel sorry for himself. “It’s not unusual right now,” he said. “In this country, working people are often one medical disaster away from financial ruin.”

Read More..

One Illness After Another, and an Eviction Looming

As the water surged through the basement apartment of a Coney Island town house during Hurricane Sandy, Jeffrey Cowen, a cherubic and chatty sort, tried to calm down the two tenants who had remained with him in the building.

Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times

Jeffrey Cowen, 51, in his Coney Island apartment. His illnesses have led to his falling about $8,400 behind in his rent.

For the past 100 years, The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund has provided direct assistance to children, families and the elderly in New York. To celebrate the 101st campaign, an article will appear daily through Jan. 25. Each profile will illustrate the difference that even a modest amount of money can make in easing the struggles of the poor.

Last year donors contributed $7,003,854, which was distributed to those in need through seven New York charities.

2012-13 Campaign

Previously recorded:

$3,512,137

Recorded Friday:

302,605

*Total:

$3,814,742

Last year to date:

$3,648,728

*Includes $709,856 contributed to the Hurricane Sandy relief efforts.

The Youngest Donors

If your child or family is using creative techniques to raise money for this year’s campaign, we want to hear from you. Drop us a line on Facebook or talk to us on Twitter.

“The water is not here yet, and we have two more floors and the roof,” Mr. Cowen, 51, recalled telling them, as everybody stood in his first-floor studio apartment. “It’s not time to panic. Even if the water gets in here, we’re still not going to panic, because that’s how people get hurt.”

This levelheadedness seems to inform his attitude about his illnesses — spinal stenosis, diabetes, hypertension and heart problems. Mr. Cowen has been to the operating room enough, he said, that he has developed a “shtick”:

“I say to the doctors, ‘Listen up — Rule No. 1: I don’t want to hear “Oops!”

“ ‘Rule No. 2: I don’t want to hear: “Dr. Brown, we haven’t seen anything like this since med school.” ’ ”

Nonetheless, Mr. Cowen’s illnesses have led to his falling about $8,400 behind in his rent; he could face eviction proceedings beginning next month.

Mr. Cowen, a counselor at John V. Lindsay Wildcat Academy, a charter school for at-risk youth, was born in Washington Heights in Manhattan but grew up with two siblings in Portsmouth, Ohio.

Mr. Cowen’s father owned a pallet-making business located in Portsmouth and Columbus, Ohio. The business thrived until the main plant in Portsmouth burned to the ground, he said.

The family eventually received welfare benefits.

Mr. Cowen received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from the Ohio State University, and another in political science from Antioch College. He went to Los Angeles after his five-year marriage ended in divorce. In 2000, an online relationship brought him to New York, and when the relationship ended, he stayed.

In 2007, he began feeling “a tingling down my spine.” An M.R.I. revealed that he had spinal stenosis, a narrowing of the spinal column that puts pressure on the cord. He had surgery to remove a piece of bone from his vertebrae to relieve pressure, he said.

In June 2010, he began feeling sick, and so run-down that he frequently missed work. When his sick days and vacation days were used up and he could not work, he had no income. About four months later, he had a heart attack, and had stents implanted. Because he had worked sporadically, he had fallen $3,300 behind in his rent and utilities, he said. Within nine months, he had recovered financially, he said.

“Around early fall of last year, I became weaker and weaker,” Mr. Cowen said. He exhausted his vacation and sick days and again began falling behind on his rent and bills. He said he did not seek medical care because disability payments would not be enough for him to make his rent. Being out of the hospital allowed him to work, if only intermittently.

“I popped children’s aspirin like M & M’s just to keep the blood flowing,” he said, but eventually he went to the hospital, where he found out he needed heart surgery — a triple bypass. He also found out that he had hypertension and diabetes.

Now, Mr. Cowen is back at work, trying to keep up with his rent and to pay his landlord extra each month to bring his rent current. He said he was relieved when he received assistance from the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty, a beneficiary agency of UJA-Federation of New York, one of the organizations supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. Met Council drew $1,387 from the fund to help him pay outstanding electric and heating bills.

Mr. Cowen is applying to various sources for ways to pay the back rent, but he said that soon his landlord might have to initiate eviction proceedings.

And while he acknowledges that sometimes the whole situation “feels like a house of cards,” he does not feel sorry for himself. “It’s not unusual right now,” he said. “In this country, working people are often one medical disaster away from financial ruin.”

Read More..

South Africa’s President Says Mandela Looking ‘Much Better’

JOHANNESBURG — President Jacob Zuma of South Africa gave a largely upbeat assessment on Tuesday of the health of Nelson Mandela, the nation’s first black president and anti-apartheid icon, who has spent more than two weeks in the hospital for a lung infection and gallstones.

Mr. Zuma said in a statement that Mr. Mandela, 94, “is looking much better” and that “the doctors are happy with the progress he is making.”

The president visited Mr. Mandela on Christmas morning at a Pretoria hospital along with Mr. Mandela’s wife, the children’s rights activist Graça Machel.

“We found him in good spirits,” Mr. Zuma said in the statement. “He shouted my clan name, Nxamalala, as I walked into the ward.”

Mr. Mandela has been in increasingly frail health, and his latest hospitalization has been the longest since he was released from prison in 1990. His health is closely watched; local news organizations have been camped outside the hospital.

He has suffered recurrent lung infections, a legacy of the tuberculosis he contracted in prison. The government tightly controls information about his condition, releasing only occasional updates. When Mr. Mandela was first hospitalized on Dec. 8, the government said that he was in no danger, but Mr. Zuma later said that Mr. Mandela’s condition was serious.

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U.S. Civilian Is Killed at Police Headquarters in Kabul

KABUL, Afghanistan — A woman identified as a police officer shot and killed an American civilian adviser at police headquarters in Kabul on Monday, Afghan police officials said, breaking a relative lull in the so-called insider killings that have strained the relationship between Americans and Afghans here.

Shah Marai/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Afghan policemen at the site where a female police officer reportedly shot and killed an American civilian adviser on Monday.

A spokesman for the American-led NATO force in Afghanistan, Col. Thomas W. Collins, confirmed that the attack had taken place but said that the victim’s name was being withheld according to military policy. He described the attacker as “a suspected member of the Afghan uniformed police” and said the suspect was in Afghan custody.

Insider attacks, in which members of the Afghan security services have turned against their foreign allies, have greatly increased in the past year, with 61 American and other coalition members killed, not including the episode on Monday, compared with 35 deaths the previous year, according to NATO figures.

Monday’s attack — the first insider attack known to be committed by a woman — came after a lull in insider shootings after the military instituted a series of precautions meant to reduce them. The most recent episode was on Nov. 11, when a British soldier was killed in Helmand Province.

A person at Kabul police headquarters, where the shooting occurred at about 10 a.m., said the suspect, a woman named Nargis, was a police officer who had been detached to work in the Interior Ministry’s legal and gender equality department. The person, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release information, said the attacker had used a pistol and had shot the adviser, an engineer working in construction, in the head at close range.

He said the suspect had been arrested at the scene by Afghan police officers. Although the person did not specify a motive, he said that it was not related to terrorism and that the suspect had no known connections with insurgents.

American and Afghan officials have been struggling to figure out how large a factor Taliban infiltration or coercion has been in the increase in insider killings this year. Although insurgent contact has been clear in some cases, many of the attacks have seemed to come out of personal animosity or outrage, attributed to culture clash or growing Afghan anger at what they see as an unwelcome occupation by the United States and its allies.

In other violence on Monday, a coalition member was killed in an insurgent attack in eastern Afghanistan, and an Afghan Local Police commander killed five fellow officers at a checkpoint in Jowzjan Province in the north. Dur Mohammad, the commander at the checkpoint, shot and killed five officers under his command, according to Gen. Abdul Aziz Ghairat, the provincial police chief. He said the commander fled after the shooting. General Ghairat did not offer a motive but said that Mr. Mohammad had connections with the Taliban in the area.

The Afghan Local Police program, which seeks to bring armed elements — including some former insurgents — into government service, has drawn criticism because of a series of episodes in which the armed elements have switched allegiances, sometimes repeatedly.

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Tepid Sales of Microsoft’s Windows 8 Point to Shaky Market

Mario Tama/Getty Images

Viewing Windows 8 in New York upon its debut in October.

BELLEVUE, Wash. — It used to be that a new version of the Windows operating system was enough to get people excited about buying a new computer, giving sales a nice pop.

Ted S. Warren/Associated Press

One researcher said sales of Windows devices were down compared with last year.

Not this time. Windows 8, the latest edition of Microsoft’s software, failed to pack shoppers into a Microsoft store in a mall here last week, at a time when parking lots in the area were overflowing. The trickle of shopping bags leaving the store with merchandise was nothing like the steady stream at a bustling Apple store upstairs.

Claude Ballard was among the customers at the Microsoft store who tried out Surface, a new Microsoft-designed Windows tablet. Mr. Ballard, who described himself as a “semiretired” computer systems manager for a real estate firm, said he was intrigued by the eye-catching design of Windows 8 — but not enough to scrimp to buy a new computer this year.

“It’s economics, really,” he said. “It’s going to be a better year for my mechanic than it is for me.”

Weak PC sales this holiday season suggest that the struggles of Microsoft and other companies that depend heavily on the computer business will not abate soon. Plenty of consumers already own PCs and seem content to make do with what they have, especially in a shaky economy in which less expensive mobile devices are bidding for a share of their wallets.

While there are also many tablets running Microsoft’s new, touch-friendly Windows, they have so far failed to emerge from the shadow of competing products from Apple and Amazon and other devices that are being snapped up by holiday shoppers.

Emmanuel Fromont, president of the Americas division of Acer, the world’s No. 4 PC maker, said sales of the company’s Windows 8 PCs had been lower than expected. He said one factor was the system’s unfamiliar design, which appeared to be making consumers cautious.

“There was not a huge spark in the market,” Mr. Fromont said. “It’s a slow start, there’s no question.”

The clearest evidence of Windows 8’s disappointing introduction comes from the research firm NPD, which estimates that sales of Windows machines have actually dropped from a year ago.

According to NPD, stores in the United States sold 13 percent fewer Windows devices from late October, when Windows 8 made its debut, through the first week in December, than in the same period last year.

Those figures do not include sales in Microsoft’s own stores, which were the only place to buy a Surface tablet during that period, but because the stores are scarce, analysts believe it is unlikely they made a big difference.

“I think everybody would have hoped for a better start,” said Stephen Baker, an analyst at NPD. “The thing is, this market is not the same market that Windows 7 or Vista or even XP launched into.”

Those earlier versions of Windows all came out during periods when the PC’s status as the center of computing seemed far more secure. In the intervening years, smartphones and tablets have become much more serious rivals for a share of consumer spending on technology. Sales of PCs have been declining for much of the year.

While most people are not getting rid of their PCs altogether in favor of mobile devices, analysts believe they are postponing purchases of new ones.

“What you’re seeing is not a retirement of PCs, but a push-out in the replacement cycle,” said A. M. Sacconaghi, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein. “If people used to buy PCs every four years and are now buying them every five years, that could lower PC sales by 20 percent over time. That’s substantial.”

Mr. Sacconaghi predicted that global PC shipments would be down 3 percent in 2012.

The shift in spending to tablets is one reason that Windows 8 is so critical for Microsoft’s future. The company overhauled its operating system with a radically different, tile-based interface that is easier to navigate on touch-screen devices. Microsoft intends the software to be flexible enough that it can still be used on conventional laptops and desktops, including newer models with touch screens.

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N.Y.U. and Others Offer Shorter Courses Through Medical School

Training to become a doctor takes so long that just the time invested has become, to many, emblematic of the gravity and prestige of the profession.

But now one of the nation’s premier medical schools, New York University, and a few others around the United States are challenging that equation by offering a small percentage of students the chance to finish early, in three years instead of the traditional four.

Administrators at N.Y.U. say they can make the change without compromising quality, by eliminating redundancies in their science curriculum, getting students into clinical training more quickly and adding some extra class time in the summer.

Not only, they say, will those doctors be able to hang out their shingles to practice earlier, but they will save a quarter of the cost of medical school — $49,560 a year in tuition and fees at N.Y.U., and even more when room, board, books, supplies and other expenses are added in.

“We’re confident that our three-year students are going to get the same depth and core knowledge, that we’re not going to turn it into a trade school,” said Dr. Steven Abramson, vice dean for education, faculty and academic affairs at N.Y.U. School of Medicine.

At this point, the effort involves a small number of students at three medical schools: about 16 incoming students at N.Y.U., or about 10 percent of next year’s entering class; 9 at Texas Tech Health Science Center School of Medicine; and even fewer, for now, at Mercer University School of Medicine’s campus in Savannah, Ga. A similar trial at Louisiana State University has been delayed because of budget constraints.

But Dr. Steven Berk, the dean at Texas Tech, said that 10 or 15 other schools across the country had expressed interest in what his university was doing, and the deans of all three schools say that if the approach works, they will extend the option to larger numbers of students.

“You’re going to see this kind of three-year pathway become very prominent across the country,” Dr. Abramson predicted.

The deans say that getting students out the door more quickly will accomplish several goals. By speeding up production of physicians, they say, it could eventually dampen a looming doctor shortage, although the number of doctors would not increase unless the schools enrolled more students in the future.

The three-year program would also curtail student debt, which now averages $150,000 by graduation, and by doing so, persuade more students to go into shortage areas like pediatrics and internal medicine, rather than more lucrative specialties like dermatology.

The idea was supported by Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, a former health adviser to President Obama, and a colleague, Victor R. Fuchs. In an editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association in March, they said there was “substantial waste” in the nation’s medical education. “Years of training have been added without evidence that they enhance clinical skills or the quality of care,” they wrote. They suggested that the 14 years of college, medical school, residency and fellowship that it now takes to train a subspecialty physician could be reduced by 30 percent, to 10 years.

That opinion, however, is not universally held. Other experts say that a three-year medical program would deprive students of the time they need to delve deeply into their subjects, to consolidate their learning and to reach the level of maturity they need to begin practicing, while adding even more pressure to a stressful academic environment.

“The downside is that you are really tired,” said Dr. Dan Hunt, co-secretary of the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, the accrediting agency for medical schools in the United States and Canada. But because accreditation standards do not dictate the fine points of curriculum, the committee has approved N.Y.U.’s proposal, which exceeds by five weeks its requirement that schools provide at least 130 weeks of medical education.

The medical school is going ahead with its three-year program despite the damage from Hurricane Sandy, which forced NYU Langone Medical Center to evacuate more than 300 patients at the height of the storm and temporarily shut down three of its four main teaching hospitals.

Dr. Abramson of N.Y.U. said that postgraduate training, which typically includes three years in a hospital residency, and often fellowships after that, made it unnecessary to try to cram everything into the medical school years. Students in the three-year program will have to take eight weeks of class before entering medical school, and stay in the top half of their class academically. Those who do not meet the standards will revert to the four-year program.

Read More..

N.Y.U. and Others Offer Shorter Courses Through Medical School

Training to become a doctor takes so long that just the time invested has become, to many, emblematic of the gravity and prestige of the profession.

But now one of the nation’s premier medical schools, New York University, and a few others around the United States are challenging that equation by offering a small percentage of students the chance to finish early, in three years instead of the traditional four.

Administrators at N.Y.U. say they can make the change without compromising quality, by eliminating redundancies in their science curriculum, getting students into clinical training more quickly and adding some extra class time in the summer.

Not only, they say, will those doctors be able to hang out their shingles to practice earlier, but they will save a quarter of the cost of medical school — $49,560 a year in tuition and fees at N.Y.U., and even more when room, board, books, supplies and other expenses are added in.

“We’re confident that our three-year students are going to get the same depth and core knowledge, that we’re not going to turn it into a trade school,” said Dr. Steven Abramson, vice dean for education, faculty and academic affairs at N.Y.U. School of Medicine.

At this point, the effort involves a small number of students at three medical schools: about 16 incoming students at N.Y.U., or about 10 percent of next year’s entering class; 9 at Texas Tech Health Science Center School of Medicine; and even fewer, for now, at Mercer University School of Medicine’s campus in Savannah, Ga. A similar trial at Louisiana State University has been delayed because of budget constraints.

But Dr. Steven Berk, the dean at Texas Tech, said that 10 or 15 other schools across the country had expressed interest in what his university was doing, and the deans of all three schools say that if the approach works, they will extend the option to larger numbers of students.

“You’re going to see this kind of three-year pathway become very prominent across the country,” Dr. Abramson predicted.

The deans say that getting students out the door more quickly will accomplish several goals. By speeding up production of physicians, they say, it could eventually dampen a looming doctor shortage, although the number of doctors would not increase unless the schools enrolled more students in the future.

The three-year program would also curtail student debt, which now averages $150,000 by graduation, and by doing so, persuade more students to go into shortage areas like pediatrics and internal medicine, rather than more lucrative specialties like dermatology.

The idea was supported by Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, a former health adviser to President Obama, and a colleague, Victor R. Fuchs. In an editorial in the Journal of the American Medical Association in March, they said there was “substantial waste” in the nation’s medical education. “Years of training have been added without evidence that they enhance clinical skills or the quality of care,” they wrote. They suggested that the 14 years of college, medical school, residency and fellowship that it now takes to train a subspecialty physician could be reduced by 30 percent, to 10 years.

That opinion, however, is not universally held. Other experts say that a three-year medical program would deprive students of the time they need to delve deeply into their subjects, to consolidate their learning and to reach the level of maturity they need to begin practicing, while adding even more pressure to a stressful academic environment.

“The downside is that you are really tired,” said Dr. Dan Hunt, co-secretary of the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, the accrediting agency for medical schools in the United States and Canada. But because accreditation standards do not dictate the fine points of curriculum, the committee has approved N.Y.U.’s proposal, which exceeds by five weeks its requirement that schools provide at least 130 weeks of medical education.

The medical school is going ahead with its three-year program despite the damage from Hurricane Sandy, which forced NYU Langone Medical Center to evacuate more than 300 patients at the height of the storm and temporarily shut down three of its four main teaching hospitals.

Dr. Abramson of N.Y.U. said that postgraduate training, which typically includes three years in a hospital residency, and often fellowships after that, made it unnecessary to try to cram everything into the medical school years. Students in the three-year program will have to take eight weeks of class before entering medical school, and stay in the top half of their class academically. Those who do not meet the standards will revert to the four-year program.

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