p. Virginia Tech announced Jan. 3 that it will open Virginia’s fifth medical school, which will jointly operate with Carilion Medical Center.
p. The five-year curriculum will be modeled after Harvard Medical School’s Health Sciences and Technology Program and Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner College of Medicine, according to a Jan. 3 press release from Virginia Tech.
p. The new medical school, expected to enroll its first class in either 2009 or 2010, hopes to help ease any future physician shortages, a problem that is expected to develop over the coming decades.
p. Construction of the medical school, which will be located in Roanoke adjacent to the Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital, is expected to begin next year.
p. The medical school is part of Virginia Tech’s campaign to become a top research university and is also expected to bring jobs to the Roanoke area, where the economy lags behind other parts of the state.