U, Utah Tech propose partnership to address Utah's 'medical desert'

The University of Utah has proposed creating the Southern Utah Regional Medical Campus in St. George in partnership with Utah Tech University, requesting $10.6 million in ongoing funding from the Utah Legislature for the project.

The University of Utah has proposed creating the Southern Utah Regional Medical Campus in St. George in partnership with Utah Tech University, requesting $10.6 million in ongoing funding from the Utah Legislature for the project. (Ben B. Braun, Deseret News)


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KEY TAKEAWAYS
  • The University of Utah is seeking $10.6 million in ongoing funding to establish a medical campus in St. George.
  • The partnership with Utah Tech aims to address Utah's shortage of primary care providers.
  • Intermountain Health would be a partner in training students, with plans to expand rural residency programs.

SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Legislature wants to provide targeted funding to areas of high workforce need to meet growing demand and the University of Utah's largest funding request this legislative session aims to address exactly that.

How?

By giving a boost to one of the most sought-after careers: MDs.

At a Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee meeting last week, U. President Taylor Randall told lawmakers the state has one of the lowest shares of primary care providers in the nation, creating a "medical desert" in many parts of Utah.

To address this, the U. has proposed creating the Southern Utah Regional Medical Campus in St. George in partnership with Utah Tech University. The U. is requesting $10.6 million in ongoing funding from the Utah Legislature for the project.

"This is a big step forward in providing rural medical care and getting doctors into communities that desperately need them right now," Randall said.

Students could attain medical doctorate status through an accelerated, three-year program that includes direct entry into residency programs with a rural track, helping to expand high-quality medical care to more of Utah's reaches.

The funding would be enough to support 10 medical students a year and Intermountain Health would act as a clinical partner in training the students. Additionally, a release from the U. said that discussions are underway for Intermountain Health to establish new residency programs in southern Utah.

Also last week, Utah Tech finalized a five-year strategic partnership with the Rural Health Association of Utah, aiming to improve local access to educational opportunities and resources, according to the St. George News.

This wouldn't mark the first time the U. partnered with Utah Tech, either. The two schools currently have a physician assistant program in its seventh year. Through the program, students earn their degree from the U. while Utah Tech provides teaching and training spaces and student support services.

The new medical campus would follow a similar structure.

Michelle Hofmann, senior associate dean at the U.'s Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine, said a key component of the collaboration between the two universities is training health care professionals who want to work in rural and underserved parts of Utah and the Mountain West.

Studies show a significant proportion of the physicians who complete medical school in Utah — 40% — remain in the state, as do 45% of those who complete their residency here.

For doctors who complete both medical school and residency in the state, the number who stay in Utah jumps to 70%. In other states, programs similar to the one proposed for St. George have documented at least a 75% physician retention in rural and primary care careers, according to a release from the U.

"Physicians are trained by physicians," Hofmann said. "If you go into an area that doesn't have enough physicians, you don't have enough people to train new physicians. We do hope to leverage the whole region, and not just St. George for training opportunities."

The initial plan begins with enrolling 10 new medical students every year, and the program could scale up to 25 students in the future, said the release.

While at this point, the plan is just that — a plan, lawmakers will consider the funding request later in the session when higher education budgets are being finalized.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

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Utah higher educationUtah LegislatureUtahEducationHealthSouthern Utah
Logan Stefanich is a reporter with KSL.com, covering southern Utah communities, education, business and tech news.
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