Though the passage of identical bills in the state House on Monday and Senate on Tuesday looks promising for Washington State Universitys desire to build a new medical school, neither piece of legislation contains any money or funding mechanism.

Rather, if one passes both chambers and gets signed by the governor, Senate Bill 5487 and companion House Bill 1559 would clear the way for WSU to pursue accreditation for its own school, amending a nearly 100-year-old law that split up degree programs between WSU and the University of Washington.

Funding is still a huge unknown, as the state is strapped for cash. But a third medical school in the state specifically at WSUs Spokane campus is much needed, says Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences President Dr. Keith Watson.

PNWU and the UW together simply cannot produce enough primary care physicians to both alleviate the existing shortages and replace those physicians retiring from practice in the coming years, Watson wrote in an op-ed piece distributed Monday.

The UW med school is built on the WWAMI model, receiving state funding from Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho to serve as the medical school for the five-state area. But that means only about half of UWs roughly 240 class spots each year go to Washington state students, Watson said Tuesday in an interview.

We need to make sure that whatever state dollars are invested are put into a program that delivers the goods, Watson said.

But it makes no sense to put a lot more dollars into the UW system thats incredibly expensive, and to keep doing the same old thing, but deny WSU money to get its own community-based medical school started, he said. I think we need to look at innovative ways, and I think WSU has put a good alternative on the table that should be funded.

In particular, he said, the goods need to be primary care doctors, in chronic shortage on this side of the state. PNWU was founded to specifically address that need, and Watson says a WSU medical school is necessary to fill the void, as well.

In this five-state catchment, theres over 9,000 physicians over the age of 60, and thus nearing retirement, he said. With only four medical schools UW, PNWU, Oregon University of Health Sciences in Portland and the University of Utah School of Medicine, two of which arent even in the catchment area were not gonna be able to produce enough physicians to replace them.

With such a looming shortage, Watson said, he doesnt see a WSU medical school as a potential competitor. Applicants may prefer one school over the other, but with PNWU now receiving more than 4,000 applications for its 135 class spots, there will be no dearth of aspiring medical students.

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PNWU president fully supports WSU medical school