Shelbie Harris
News Editor
After years of anticipation, Gov. Butch Otter revealed what some consider Idaho State University’s worst kept secret – plans to build Idaho’s first medical school located at ISU’s campus in Meridian.
Funded in part by New Mexico real estate mogul, Daniel Burrell, the private Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine (ICOM) plans to break ground in 2017 and accept its first class of 150 medical students in 2018.
“Private investors have decided that one of the things they want to invest in is osteopathic medical education,” said Linda Hatzenbuehler, ISU’s vice provost and executive dean for the division of health sciences. “I believe they went up to the state of Montana before coming to Idaho.”
Burrell has been making news across western states with newspapers calling him a “rainmaker,” a “rising star,” and “New Mexico’s new power player.” In 2013, as the former CEO of a Santa Fe realty company, Burrell discovered what he said was the largest freestanding deposit of garnet in the U.S., between Alamogordo and El Paso, in the Jarilla Mountains Mineral District of Otero County, New Mexico, according to Albuquerque Business First.
This discovery came after Burrell and his family founded the New Mexico Leadership Institute, putting up $825,000 to offer scholarships and mentoring to 33 entrepreneurial high school students each year to attend New Mexico State University and the University of New Mexico.
In 2013, the Burrell family funded the 80,000-square-foot Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine at New Mexico State – a $105 million project in all, scheduled to launch in the fall of 2016.
Burrell wanted to solve a major doctor shortage in the state, while creating hundreds of jobs and giving the economy a $100 million boost.
“[The investors] said ‘since you don’t have your own medical school we’re thinking of investing our resources to develop and build a medical school in Idaho,’” said Hatzenbuehler, who is also ISU’s appointed spokesperson for the medical school announcement. “Anything needed to develop the school, including the physical plant, will come from these investors.”
Construction for the new, $32 million plant will begin February 2017 with the grand opening slated for February 2018.
Hatzenbuehler said there is land available for development near the ISU facilities in Meridian and that investors are considering the locale for the new facility.
Talks between the Burrell Group and Montana State ended in December 2015 after announcing a controversial plan to build a 600-student, for-profit osteopathic college in Bozeman, wrote the Bozeman Daily Chronicle.
State officials had initial conversations with the Burrell Group on Jan. 20 and ISU has been preparing for a boost to its medical program since.
A request to establish a new Vice President position for Health Sciences occurred on Feb. 17 – eight days before Gov. Otter made the medical school announcement public.
The Idaho State Board of Education (SBOE) unanimously carried the motion, which will create a sixth vice president position at ISU.
“Health affairs is our most important mission,” said James Fletcher, ISU’s vice president of finance and administration. “We have the statewide mission which is about 30 percent of the action depending on how you manage it and the required span of control for taking care of the academic departments plus the health mission is overwhelming for the provost.”
Robert Hasty, founding dean of the ICOM, will serve as chief academic officer and John Goodnow will serve as its president and executive board member.
A board of trustees consisting of local and regional physicians and healthcare executives will govern the privately funded school with the Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation, which serves as the professional family for more than 123,000 osteopathic physicians (DOs) and osteopathic medical students, handling the accreditation process.
In addition to being privately funded, the school will also be separately licensed and independently operated.
The ICOM will pay ISU for med school students to use shared campus space or services and the agreement provides for joint appointments, shared faculty and joint research between ISU and the ICOM.
“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for me and it is historical for the State of Idaho,” said Hasty. “It is going to be a game changer for the state and offer opportunities for Idahoans to become osteopathic physicians in their own state while addressing Idaho’s physician shortage crisis.”
Some individuals have expressed their concern regarding the partnership between a public institution and private organization.
Published in the Idaho Statesman, “Dr. Ted Epperly, who runs the Family Medicine Residency of Idaho, said the new school is based on good intentions. But he worries it might damage the health care infrastructure of the state instead of strengthening it. Stakeholders could take actions over the next several years to lessen the risk of harm, he said.”
Idaho, which ranks 49th in the nation in number of doctors per capita and is one of five states without its own medical school, could see a surge in osteopathic doctors in the next five years; however, some doctors could relocate as ICOM serves a five-state region including Wyoming, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota.
“While all of ICOM students will spend their pre-clinical years in the classroom and labs at the Meridian campus, only a portion of the students will be attending clinical rotations,” Hasty said. “The students will be assigned to clinical sites throughout the five-state region, and ICOM will be investing time and resources in developing additional residency programs in advance of the first anticipated graduating class in 2022 to help advance the mission.”
The announcement of the medical school should serve as a capstone to ISU President Arthur Vailas’s vision to strengthen the university’s position as the state leader in Idaho health services.
For years, ISU has felt the heat and the pressure, not as much as 400 pounds per square inch and 700 degrees farenheit – the requirement for carbon to change into a diamond – but more fittingly, a garnet.
“Both ICOM and ISU are going to benefit from the collaboration in so many ways,” Hasty said. “This agreement opens the door to a tremendous amount of collaborative opportunities, including inter-professional education, teaching, research and community outreach.”
