The Oregon Institute of Technology is seeking financial support to start a new public medical school in Klamath Falls with the hopes of addressing the primary care provider shortage in rural Oregon.
Oregon Tech leaders say Oregonians are facing decreasing access to health care providers, particularly in primary care. They say the problem is more pronounced in rural parts of the state.
But its proposal would take years and millions of dollars to realize. It’s asking state legislators to allocate $1.5 million just to plan out the process.
Nagi Naganathan, president of Oregon Tech, told members of the Oregon House Committee on Higher Education and Workforce Development during an informational hearing Thursday that a solution to the state’s health care access problem would be to rapidly increase the number of primary care physicians educated and trained in the state.
Naganathan said the university is proposing to open up the state’s second public medical school after Oregon Health & Science University. He said the program would focus on osteopathic medicine, which emphasizes a holistic, patient-centered approach, and graduate D.O.s instead of M.D.s. The program would work closely with Sky Lakes Medical Center, a teaching hospital that’s adjacent to the Oregon Tech campus, he said.
David Kauble, president of Sky Lakes and a member of Oregon Tech’s board of trustees, told The Oregonian/OregonLive that the hospital system would work with the university to create a “new pipeline of students and ultimately primary care physicians who are trained in rural Oregon that would want to work and practice in a rural community.”
Research shows that medical providers who spend at least half their education and training in rural settings are significantly more likely to establish their practices in rural areas. Studies have shown that rural training exposure is associated with a five to six-fold increase in the likelihood of choosing rural practice.
“There’s a demand across the country for physicians willing to practice in rural communities,” Kauble said. “What we’re proposing is an Oregon-centric solution. … If you have Oregon students that can be educated and trained in Oregon in a rural community, then you’re growing your own.”
Kauble said the state heavily relies on physicians and health care workers who move into Oregon from out of state. He said creating a medical school in rural southern Oregon would create opportunities for young Oregonians from surrounding areas to stay in the region to train and later practice medicine.
Oregon Tech would need to earn accreditation from the American Osteopathic Association’s Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation, which oversees 42 osteopathic medical schools today.
Gaylyn Maurer, executive director of health and wellness at Oregon Tech, said the university is still in the early stages of the planning process and has not yet submitted an application for accreditation. She said the university’s next step is a comprehensive study to figure out the medical school’s financial plan, a timeline for opening the school and a business plan to keep the program sustainable.
Maurer said the school won’t know the number of students it would enroll or its annual budget for the medical program until the $1.5 million planning study is complete.
Maurer said the university’s plan to open an osteopathic medical school comes amid a rapid growth in such doctorate programs across the country, particularly in rural areas. She said osteopathic medical programs are known for their emphasis on primary care, and that graduates of osteopathic schools have strong residency placement rates.
The last time Oregon had a new medical school open was in 2011, when the private, California-based Western University of Health Sciences opened a branch campus in Lebanon for its College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific Northwest.
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