If not for Dr. Charles Ed Allen, there may not be a medical school at East Tennessee State University, according to the schools former president.

His efforts go back into at least the 1960s in trying to establish a medical school here, said Dr. Paul E. Stanton Jr., former ETSU president and also a former patient of Allen. Ed kept his eye on the ball and never gave up. He was the force that was the leader behind it. No one had anything more to do with getting the medical school here than he did.

Allen died Wednesday. He was 82.

Allen was a Johnson City cardiologist and internist who Stanton said spent countless hours traveling to Nashville and Washington to advocate for a medical school in Northeast Tennessee.

He knew the need of the region, the lack of physicians in this area, notable lack of physicians, Stanton said.

In the 1960s there was indeed a notable lack of health care in the 13 counties of this region. Allen thought the best way to remedy that was to begin training doctors right here, Stanton said.

According to ETSU, from 1965-73, Allen served as the founding president of the Appalachian Regional Center for the Healing Arts, which was created as an official health systems agency with a mission to make the ETSU medical school a reality.

In speaking of his friend, Stanton recalled the battle to get the medical school established at ETSU. Federal legislation cleared the way for the school, thanks to the late Congressman James H. Jimmy Quillen, but Nashville lawmakers had to actually establish the school.

The big battle for the school came between 1972 and 1974 in Nashville. The initiative faced major opposition from the University of Tennessee system and then-governor Winfield Dunn, who vetoed the bill establishing the school.

The legislature overrode that veto. The first class was admitted to the ETSU medical school in 1978.

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Dr. Charles Ed Allen, dedicated worker to establish ETSU medical school, dies