Bill would expand U. of Utah medical school class

Higher education The requested $10 million would admit 20 new students in the fall, 20 more later.

Last year, Utah legislators shut down an effort to admit more medical students at the University of Utah despite a physician shortage that ranks among the worst in the country.

This year, the outlook appears rosier though it will still have to contend with other high-dollar desires in higher education.

SB42, sponsored by Sen. John Valentine, R-Orem, is more ambitious than last years request, calling for $10 million to quickly replace 20 spots cut over the last four years and prepare for another 20 students, building toward a U. School of Medicine class of 122.

"Forty would have been the number we should have moved to during this time period to keep pace," Valentine said Friday on the Senate floor. "Doctors in my generation, the baby boom generation, they are retiring in droves. We need to make sure we are aware of this problem and we take proactive steps to [fix] it, and this is a proactive step to do it."

One of the first bills considered after the session opened Monday, it passed through the Senate Education committee unanimously and got another unanimous thumbs up with a second reading on the Senate floor Friday. The Senate is expected to vote on the proposal early this week; it will then go to the House for consideration.

If it passes, Dean Vivian Lee said, the school will admit 20 additional students this fall, and admit the other 20 students in the next two years.

Facing federal and state funding cuts, the medical school cut its annual class size to 82 students in 2009 a time when it should have been expanding, Lee said.

"Theres no way we can keep up," Lee said, citing Utahs rapid population growth, an aging population and demands brought about by the new national health care law.

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Bill would expand U. of Utah medical school class