SPOKANE - Medical officials predict an aging population and expanded health coverage under the Affordable Care Act will contribute to doctor shortages across the nation. In response to the projected need, Washington State University has begun exploring the feasibility of opening a medical school on its Spokane campus.

"It's clear we need more primary care physicians," WSU president Elson Floyd said. The University of Washington has done a great job of putting doctors in the region, he said, but increasing demand in rural Washington state "is so great it may require two medical schools."

UW has operated the WWAMI program for four decades, training doctors for Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho.

WSU has been affiliated with the program for years, but school officials say they may have outgrown it and cite doctor shortages in eastern Washington that the program hasn't addressed.

WSU's feasibility study is due at the end of June, and Floyd thinks there is room for such expansion. "For states with our population, it is not unusual to have two medical schools," he said.

Floyd is the former president of the University of Missouri system, which operates two medical schools.

The state of Missouri, similar in population to Washington, has a total of five medical schools admitting 500 total medical students per year, according to a WSU statement. UW admits 120 medical students from Washington per year, the statement read.

Doctor shortages are expected across the country as baby boomers age, physicians retire, and more people gain insurance through federal health care overhaul, said Christiane Mitchell of the Association of American Medical Colleges in Washington, D.C.

The association projects a shortfall of 91,500 doctors across the nation by 2020. The organization does not break down the expected shortages by state.

"Every baby boomer who became a doctor is about to retire," Mitchell said.

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Citing need for more doctors, WSU considers med school