By Andrew Doughman (contact)

Friday, Nov. 8, 2013 | 5:15 p.m.

UNLV might not have a new, independent medical school until 2025.

Although the presidents at UNLV and UNR inked an agreement to create a separately accredited medical school at UNLV that would mint new medical doctors, they're hamstrung by a past decision of the university system's Board of Regents.

In 2005, the board restricted UNR and UNLV to "a single School of Medicine, School of Law, and School of Dentistry for a period of twenty years."

Right now, UNR operates the University of Nevada School of Medicine. So a UNLV School of Medicine couldn't exist until 2025 under the current rule.

The presidents of UNR and UNLV said earlier this week that they would work together to develop a "date certain for the final stage of separately accredited school of medicine," but the regents' rule appears to have already made that decision for the presidents.

So Regent James Dean Leavitt said he's trying to repeal the rule.

"How can we now be talking about a UNLV medical school when we have that policy on the books?" he said. "It makes sense that it's now time to remove that policy. It's time to remove that prohibition."

Leavitt is the regent who leads a health sciences committee on the board. He was also on the board in 2005 and voted to put the 20-year prohibition in place then.

Read the rest here:

Regents looking into rule that prohibits UNLV medical school until 2025