This holiday season, I'm thankful for the work that business, medical, and university leaders here, in Pullman, and in Seattle have done in evaluating whether it's feasible to develop a four-year medical school in Spokane—and for concluding that it is.

For the first time in my memory, their efforts have given real momentum to the idea that a medical school should be developed here. As the higher-education wars were fought here in the mid-1980s, as the Riverpoint Campus was formed, and as universities developed their facilities and their missions, I've often thought that with our hospitals, we're already an important regional medical center, and should go the rest of the way by developing a medical school."

It's easy to dismiss this idea because of the many problems posed by Washington state's enormous budget shortfall, some $2.6 billion by last estimate.

Yet, let me point out two things. State funds make up a small portion of the funding for most medical schools, with federal and corporate money covering much bigger shares. Elected leaders want to improve health care. Health-care companies want to improve their operating prospects for the future. Helping to pay for the education of more doctors is one way for both to do that.

Secondly, we just flat need more doctors, and that's true of the nation and even moreso of sparsely populated areas like the Inland Northwest. In Spokane, it's been known for years that we're trending toward having too few general practitioners to care for our population at the important initial level of primary care.

In truth, our entire national system of compensating—and encouraging—primary-care doctors needs to be overhauled, and soon. A young physician I know who put himself through medical school and built his clinic himself a few year ago says money is so tight in his practice that he wouldn't do it all again. Small communities in our region are having a devil of a time attracting new physicians, and one of the most surefire ways to help them do that is to educate young doctors closer to those communities.

Now, we have a wonderful potential partner in the University of Washington Medical School, one of the best schools in the country at educating primary-care physicians.

The UW medical school clearly needs to expand, and we should be thanking our lucky stars that UW President Mark Emmert and Washington State University President Elson Floyd are way out front in advocating the medical school's possible expansion in Spokane. Apparently, this is not just the season for lions to be lying down with lambs. Cougars are lying down with Huskies, too. This is first-rate cooperation by two universities that are supposed to have the interests of the entire state at heart.

We also should be thankful for the leadership of WSU Spokane Chancellor Brian Pitcher, Dr. Tom Norris of the UW School of Medicine, hospital and other health-care executives here, and a new generation of business leaders who've done so much, including Greater Spokane Incorporated President and CEO Rich Hadley.

"People perk up; there's a status about having a medical school," says Pitcher. "Certainly, there's an aura that comes with this."

We can all get so much out of this: fine new doctors, great medical care, expanded research, needs met in beleaguered little towns, greatly enhanced business opportunities—and more bounce in our civic step.

Sure, money is tight, and the hoped-for new medical school might not happen for some time, but it's still a symbol of hope for the future. Maybe there is a bright Christmas star shining over Spokane this holiday season.