Solutions Through Higher Education

Urgently needed medical school would help state

The Arizona Republic
Jan. 22, 2010

Not everything changes in a bad economy.

Not everything changes when health-care reform gets thrown up in the air by Massachusetts voters.

Some things, like the desperate need for more medical doctors and pharmacists in Arizona, stay constant. Urgently so.

As it stands, the only thing standing in the way of the urgently needed University of Arizona medical school in downtown Phoenix is a meeting of state legislators.

The new UA Health Sciences Education building effectively is a done deal. Legislation for the project has been passed by the Legislature, signed by the governor and approved by the Board of Regents.

Financing with bonds that are payable through the lottery fund (not the general fund) six years from now is secured. Property near North Seventh and Van Buren streets awaits bulldozers. Design plans are prepared. If ever there was a genuinely "shovel ready" project waiting to employ as many as 5,300 on-site construction workers, this $187 million education facility is it.

All that stands in its way is a required review of the project by the Joint Committee on Capital Review, a 14-member legislative panel that has yet to schedule a meeting on the subject.

If the Health Sciences project somehow threatened the sensitive budget-balancing negotiations with which lawmakers currently struggle, reluctance on their part might be understandable. But it doesn't. Or shouldn't. All this project does is put people to work and put Arizona's universities on track to produce more vitally needed medical personnel.

The medical-school addition would allow the university to expand its classes from the current 48 students per year to up to 120 students studying general medicine and another 80 students studying pharmacology.

But relieving the critical need for more highly qualified medical personnel only begins to tell the story of this project. Research dollars amounting to at least twice the capital investment would flow to a first-class medical-research facility like this partnership project between UA and Arizona State University, known as the Arizona Biomedical Collaborative.

In all, this expansion project will provide education space for more than 4,400 students from numerous health-care programs of UA, ASU and Northern Arizona University.

The Health Sciences Education building is a true "stimulus" project. It gives three sectors of the economy - construction, education and health care - a boost, all at once.

Lawmakers need to review it, and approve it, without undue delay.