The Cleveland Clinic's plans to join forces with Ohio University's Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine is good news for both institutions, and should be a worthwhile step toward increasing the number of primary care physicians in Northeast Ohio.

The philosophical underpinnings of osteopathy -- treating the whole body rather than focusing on specific symptoms of illnesses -- lend themselves particularly well to practice in such primary care categories as family medicine, internal medicine and pediatrics.

And the need for primary care doctors is expected to become acute within a decade. Some trackers of medical trends say the nation eventually will have 45,000 fewer primary care doctors than it needs.

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The medical school extension campus that OU and the Clinic are establishing at Southpointe Hospital in Warrensville Heights is expected to enroll its first 32-student class in 2015.

Maybe that sounds like a drop in a bucket and still 45,000 jobs shy of what the country will need, but the hope is that the experience and connections that the students develop in this region during medical school will make them more likely to stay and help keep Northeast Ohio from becoming one of those dreaded "underserved areas."

Benefits will accrue much sooner to city and state coffers, to the tune of more than $700,000 a year in additional tax revenues. Mayor Brad Sellers is understandably enthusiastic.

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Medical school extension will help building up primary care in Greater Cleveland: editorial