by Ken Alltucker - Jun. 27, 2012 06:59 PM The Republic | azcentral.com

St. Joseph's Hospital and Medical Center today adds a new designation: medical-school campus.

The Phoenix hospital becomes a campus for Creighton University's School of Medicine as the initial class of 42 students begins its studies.

The students, who completed their first two years of instruction at Creighton's main campus in Omaha, Neb., will finish their third and fourth years at St. Joseph's. A second class of 42 students will follow next year, giving the Phoenix hospital a constant rotation of 84 third- and fourth-year medical-school students studying in class and roaming the hospital floors on clinical rotations.

The arrangement fulfills St. Joseph's long-sought goal of being a medical-school campus for a Jesuit Catholic university. Creighton, which has long sent medical-school students to St. Joseph's for one-month rotations, pursued the arrangement to expand west with a new campus for its expanded medical school.

Both St. Joseph's and Creighton University touted the relationship as a boon for metro Phoenix's burgeoning medical-education industry and a potential source of future doctors.

"We looked at our long-term commitment to education, improving the health of this community and educating our future health-care providers," said Linda Hunt, area president for San Francisco-based Dignity Health, which owns St. Joseph's Hospital. "We are really excited about the students being here."

Five years ago, metro Phoenix did not have an "M.D." medical school. The University of Arizona College of Medicine opened its Phoenix campus in 2007. Creighton University becomes the region's second allopathic medical school granting doctor of medicine, or M.D., degrees. And Mayo Clinic is ramping up its planning for a branch of Mayo Medical School that expects to open on Mayo's Scottsdale campus in 2014.

The UA College of Medicine this summer will welcome its largest-ever class of 80 students, up from 48 students per year. UA expanded its class size with this summer's opening of the new copper-clad Health Sciences Education building at the Phoenix Biomedical Campus.

The building will allow the addition of three lecture halls, an anatomy lab and a simulation center as well as administrative offices for medical-school staff. The 268,000-square-foot building will also host Northern Arizona University's physician-assistant and physical-therapy programs.

Link:

Phoenix St. Joseph's Hospital to host 3rd-, 4th-year Creighton medical-school students