University of Arizona’s College of Medicine Phoenix campus will not receive increased state funding after it opens next year, an appropriations committee chairman says.
“I’m not going to allow them to lie to me. They said they would not be back for more money,” said Rep. Russell Pearce, R-18, chairman of one of two House appropriations committees. “I intend to hold their feet to the fire on that.”
Mr. Pearce responded to a statement by Judy Bernas, UofA associate vice president of advancement, who told the Tucson Citizen the university will be asking for at least $11 million from the Legislature for the Phoenix campus’s third year of operation. The medical school, which is scheduled to open with 24 students in the summer of 2007, received $6 million in state aid this year, and Mr. Pearce and Sen. Bob Burns, R-9, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, say the appropriation will remain at $6 million in the upcoming budget, under an agreement cut last year.
ASU, one of the collaborative partners in the medical school here, received $1 million last year and will receive $1 million this year, the two lawmakers said. Other partners in The Phoenix Biomedical Campus include the city of Phoenix and the Translational Genomics Research Institute.
Phoenix is the only U.S. city without an allopathic (M.D.) medical school.
During last year’s debate on medical school funding, some lawmakers opposed state aid to the school, saying it should be a private medical college, such as Midwestern University’s College of Osteopathic Medicine in Glendale.
“They’re not going to get it,” Mr. Pearce said of increased funding for the Phoenix medical campus. “They haven’t come to me. They know where I’m at. We told them when we started this thing not to expect more money.”
He said the biomedical campus has a commitment from the city of Phoenix for “backdoor” funding.
Mayor: Not a political issue
Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon and other city and university officials discussed funding plans for the school at a meeting last month with the Citizen’s editorial board.
“It’s still in the formulation phase; it’s still a baseline,” Mr. Gordon told the newspaper board. He added that he thinks the Legislature will come up with more money for the school.
“The Legislature is beginning to see that this is not a political issue,” Mr. Gordon said. “It’s a policy issue.”
Doctor: State needs to train physicians
Dr. Keith Joyner, dean of the UofA College of Medicine, told the editorial board that Arizona is last in the country in the rate of training physicians. The national average is 278 physicians trained per 100,000 population, and Arizona is training 201 per 100,000 population, he said.
“We need to train 30 percent more physicians,” he said. “We’re capped out in our facilities for training students here,” adding that residency training slots in the state are limited.
“We have to have our focus on ramping up the class size in Phoenix as quickly as possible,” Dr. Joiner said. The medical college hopes to have classes of 150 students eventually.
On the positive side of the situation, Dr, Joiner said, 48 percent of physicians who do their residency training in Arizona stay in the state to practice, and research funds will be more accessible with a statewide medical college.
“This is a research intensive college of medicine… This is benefiting our abilities to raise philanthropic dollars…”
House reporter Jim Small contributed to this article.