The University of Missouri would like to find a 5,000 to 6,000 square foot building, preferably on National Avenue between Cox South and Mercy, as part of the university’s overall plan for a clinical campus in Springfield that would expand the medical school.
The building would house about 12 full-time employees and would be relatively small because any medical school students coming to Springfield would be spending most of their time at the city’s two major hospitals.
“Those two health systems are going to be the campus,” said Weldon Webb, the associate dean for rural health at the university’s medical school.
The general expansion plan, devised four years ago, was discussed recently at a meeting hosted by the University of Missouri at the University Plaza Hotel.
“This is a tremendous economic development project, not just for our region, but for the state,” said Jim Anderson, president of the Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce.
Although planning is proceeding full bore, how the $40 million price will be covered remains unresolved — other than from state funds, the University of Missouri, CoxHealth and Mercy and private contributions.
Of the $40 million, $36 million is needed to expand the medical school on the University of Missouri campus in Columbia.
“It can’t happen in Springfield if it doesn’t happen in Columbia,” said Harold Williamson Jr., executive vice chancellor of the University of Missouri Health System.
Architectural plans call for the medical school to expand with construction on top of the medical school’s library in Columbia, Williams said.
Springfield officials, as well as University of Missouri officials, said it took a cooperative effort to obtain $10 million in state funds for the program during the most recent legislative session.
The $10 million is expected to be an annual apportionment for the project, Webb said, cautioning that state funding can be precarious.
Over the next two years, Webb said, the university will try to set aside half of that money to go toward the $40 million figure.
The medical school’s push into Springfield stems from what the Association of American Medical Colleges predicts will be a national shortage of 90,000 physicians by 2020.
In response, the University of Missouri has devised a way to eventually add 32 slots to its annual admission of 96 medical students.
In the most recent year, the medical school received 1,700 applications.
Williamson said there isn’t a major difference in the qualifications of the 96th student who is admitted and the next 300 or so applicants.
Webb said four major factors determine where a doctor chooses to practice: where the doctor grew up; where the doctor went to medical school; where the doctor did his or her residency; and where the doctor’s spouse grew up.
Steve Edwards, president and CEO of CoxHealth, said his hospital will need to hire about 250 doctors over the next five years. That figure includes replacing retiring doctors.
The healthcare system is staring at a choke point expected to be caused by baby boomers, born from 1946 to 1964, he said.
Those 65 and older use seven times more healthcare than those younger than 65.
Edwards was one of four speakers, as was Robert Steele, Mercy president.
The two hospitals are committed to the clinical campus, but Edwards and Steele said the community needs to get behind it.
Steele said Mercy has been expanding in southwest Missouri and hired 80 doctors last year and another 40 this year.
“For us, manpower is an issue,” Steele said.
The plan for the Springfield campus calls for, eventually, 32 medical students per class to spend their third and fourth years doing clinical work at one of the two hospitals.
Doctors typically have four years of medical school followed by three to five years of residency followed by one to two years of a fellowship for those who focus on a sub-specialty.
Although the University of Missouri School of Medicine is a relatively small school, Webb said, it leads the state in the number of physicians who practice in the state — 46 percent of its grads stay in Missouri.
The medical school already has found a way to squeeze in another eight medical students, which will increase the entering class size to 104 students starting in July 2014.
If all goes well, eight students would be at the Springfield clinical campus in June 2015; 32 in July 2016; and 64 in July of 2018.
“We have got to move,” Webb said about approaching deadlines.
SPRINGFIELD NEWS-LEADER