A Colorado kid who wants to be a doctor doesn’t have much of a shot at getting into medical school: Indeed, state residents have the second-lowest chance in the country.
The reason is the University of Colorado’s relatively small medical school, the only one in the state. And it’s why the school is trying to open a second campus in Grand Junction.
With a Western Slope campus, the medical school could expand future classes to 200 students, up from 156 planned for next fall, said its dean, Dr. Richard Krugman. The plan is part of a recommendation from the Association of American Medical Colleges to increase enrollment and head off a predicted doctor shortage beginning in 2015.
Just 38 percent of Colorado residents who applied to any medical school in the country in 2005 enrolled in one, the lowest rate in the nation besides Arizona. Three- quarters of state residents who go to medical school end up at out-of- state schools ranked below CU, Krugman said.
This is despite the fact that Colorado residents applying to medical school are academically above the national average, he said.
Arizona, whose matriculation rate was just 34 percent in 2005, is doubling its class size with a new Phoenix campus, he said.
Krugman has asked the legislature for $300,000 to start planning a Grand Junction campus, targeted to open in 2007 or 2008. The proposal calls for sending up to 25 medical students each year to St. Mary’s Hospital in Grand Junction and smaller facilities in towns such as Rifle, Delta and Montrose.
The students, matched with local physicians, would spend their last two years of medical school in the Western Slope instead of Denver, said Dr. David West, director of St. Mary’s residency program and the front-runner for associate dean of a Grand Junction campus.
All students would spend their first two years in classroom lectures on anatomy and organic chemistry in Denver, where the new Fitz simons campus will hold 200 students per class. It’s the clinical training during the last two years for which finding space for students in Denver hospitals is difficult.
In rural Colorado, students get “broader practical experience,” West said. In Denver, they typically shadow highly specialized physicians and share surgeries with five or so other students.
Korrey Klein, a CU graduate doing his residency in family medicine at St. Mary’s, said he would have spent his last two years of medical school in Grand Junction had it been an option.
“It’s a great training opportunity, especially for people interested in rural medicine,” said Klein, who grew up in Yuma.
Grand Junction students could join their classmates via telecast for lectures or travel to Denver for three or four days at a time, West said.
CU has a long history with St. Mary’s, where it has sent students to do six-week rotations the past 28 years.
Several other states have started medical school branch campuses, including Illinois and Kansas. A branch campus in Huntsville, Ala., costs about $4 million a year, West said.
Krugman said it’s premature to say how much a second Colorado campus would cost.
Staff writer Jennifer Brown can be reached at 303-820-1593 or jenbrown@denverpost.com.
