Mizzou working on medical school expansion

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- The University of Missouri is looking for a building in Springfield between Cox South and Mercy hospitals as part of a plan to establish a clinical campus in the city that would expand the medical school.

The 5,000- to 6,000-square-foot building would house about a dozen full-time employees and would be relatively small because medical students coming to Springfield would be spending most of their time in the city's two major hospitals, the Springfield News-Leader reported.

"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.

While planning continues for the medical school's expansion, there's no consensus on how the $40 million price tag for the overall project would be funded beyond what's already being provided by the state, the university, CoxHealth and Mercy, and private contributions.

Of the total cost, $36 million would go toward expanding the medical school on the university's Columbia campus.

"It can't happen in Springfield if it doesn't happen in Columbia," Harold Williamson Jr., executive vice chancellor of the University of Missouri Health System, said earlier this week at a meeting hosted by the university.

Springfield and university 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, though he cautioned that state funding can be precarious.

In response to a prediction by the Association of American Medical Colleges that there will be a national shortage of 90,000 physicians by 2020, the university has devised a way to eventually add 32 slots to its annual admission of 96 students. In the most recent year, 1,700 people applied.

Steve Edwards, president and CEO of CoxHealth, said his hospital will need to hire about 250 doctors over the next five years, including replacing retiring doctors.

The health care system is facing a choke point caused by baby boomers, born from 1946 to 1964, he said, noting that those 65 and older use seven times more health care than those younger than 65.

Although the University of Missouri School of Medicine is a relatively small school, it leads the state in the number of physicians who practice in the state -- 46 percent of its grads stay in Missouri, Webb said.