Kansas University Medical Center has earned high rankings in a recent national study for its commitment to training rural physicians and diversity efforts.

Though the study has been predictably praised by many of the schools that scored well, the response from many of the other schools that scored low has been more vitriolic.

The traditionally highly ranked medical schools — including Harvard, Penn and Johns Hopkins — are absent from the top scorers.

KU is ranked No. 5 of the nation’s 141 medical schools, behind Morehouse College, Meharry Medical College, Howard University and Wright State University Boonshoft School of Medicine.

“The Harvards and the Hopkins and some of these other schools who scored a little bit lower on our ranking are already getting a lot of recognition,” said Candice Chen, a co-author of the study who is currently working as an assistant professor of pediatrics and health policy at George Washington University.

Harvard, which ranks No. 1 in the U.S. News and World Reports rankings of medical schools for research, placed No. 62 in the social mission study, which was published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.

As a comparison, KUMC ranks No. 71 in the U.S. News’ research rankings.

The study ranks schools on their “social mission” using three criteria:

•The percentage of 1999-2001 graduates practicing primary care.

• The number of graduates from underrepresented minorities.

• How many graduates work in areas where there is a shortage of health professionals.

Heidi Chumley, senior associate dean for medical education at KUMC, said the school was proud of the number of graduates that stay in Kansas and practice family care.

Chumley said she thought that the attention paid to these sorts of areas in the future would be increasing.

“I think we may see more of it,” Chumley said, particularly among institutions funded by taxpayers. “They’re going to be asking, ‘What are we getting back?'”

Chen said it seems as if stories of people lacking access to primary care physicians are found in newspapers and on television sets, but are not examined much in medical school rankings. While the study definitely neglects things like research, it helps highlight an area of need, Chen said.

“I think the three issues we looked at are often overlooked issues,” she said.