COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) Faced with a national shortage of rural physicians, heavy but unmet demand from would-be doctors and limited classroom space, the University of Missouri wants to expand its medical school with a second campus in Springfield.

The Columbia-based School of Medicine joined health care providers CoxHealth and Sisters of Mercy Health to support a clinical campus in southwest Missouri. The program would provide third- and fourth-year medical students who started their training in Columbia with hands-on experience treating patients at two Springfield hospitals, under the supervision of doctors at CoxHealth and St. Johns Hospital, which is owned by the Mercy Health system. The plan was outlined Friday afternoon at a news conference at the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce.

You literally require more patients to build up a medical school, said Steve Edwards, president and chief executive officer for CoxHealth. And Springfield is one of the largest cities in the country without a medical school.

Most of the medical schools physical expansion would occur in Columbia, which now admits just 96 new students each year from 1,500 applicants.

That makes the medical school at the states largest university roughly half the size of peer institutions at St. Louis University, Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences and even the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine at A.T. Still University, in terms of student enrollment. Under the proposed expansion, Missouri would boost its first-year class by 32 students, a one-third increase.

And doctors trained in Columbia nearly 45 percent are more likely to remain in the state after they graduate, said Weldon Webb, associate dean for rural health at the University of Missouri School of Medicine.

Were the No. 1 provider of practicing physicians in the state, even though we are one of the smaller programs in Missouri, he said.

Edwards and other boosters of the Springfield program note the region is growing faster than the rest of the state, particularly in the resort town of Branson and communities near Table Rock Lake. A recent Missouri Hospital

Association report shows the states rural areas have fewer primary care physicians per person than urban ones, with a disproportionate share of rural doctors approaching retirement age.

We forecast future needs that will outstrip our ability to serve the region, Edwards said.

Originally posted here:
MU medical school seeks Springfield campus