By Jodie Jackson Jr.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Expanding the University of Missouri School of Medicine to include a clinical campus in southwest Missouri would require an estimated $30 million building project in Columbia.

A proposed new medical school teaching facility would provide education for an additional 32 medical students, increasing by one-third the number admitted each year to the MU School of Medicine. The first two years of the program would be spent in Columbia; the third and fourth would be spent training with physicians in the Springfield area. Officials outlined the plan yesterday at a Springfield news conference.

An economic impact study suggested construction alone would add 475 jobs and $56.5 million to the state's economy, with significantly higher impact once trained doctors are in place.

MU School of Medicine officials and representatives of Springfield hospitals Sisters of Mercy Health and CoxHealth began discussing the plan more than two years ago. The Springfield hospitals initiated the talks with an eye on aging baby boomers, demand for rural doctors and the steady flow of retiring family physicians.

"There's just not enough physicians to take care of the current population, let alone the increasing population over the next 20 years," said Weldon Webb, associate dean for rural health at the MU School of Medicine.

David Barbe, regional division president of Mercy Clinic, said building a new free-standing medical school in Springfield would cost $500 million to $800 million, so this plan could increase the number of medical school students "at the least possible cost."

"Any other model would cost more," he said, adding that new buildings, labs and faculty would be needed in Columbia to accommodate a larger crop of students.

"Right now in Columbia, they're on top of each other," Barbe said. "We couldn't shoehorn another in if we had to."

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MU medical school eyes Springfield expansion