The Spokane business community is reaping the benefits now of years of persistent diligence in its pursuit of more medical education, and Washington State University, the University of Washington, and Gonzaga University should be applauded for fully seizing the opportunity to train doctors in Eastern Washington.

The most recent example of the commitment to Spokane is the much-anticipated announcement of plans to build a new home for the University of Washington School of Medicine-Gonzaga University Regional Health Partnership. 

The planned $60 million, 80,000-square-foot building, which will be located at the east end of Spokane’s University District, is expected to be completed by August 2022. In addition to training for future physicians, the envisioned facility will house UW’s MEDEX Northwest physician assistant education program and Gonzaga’s physiology department. As UW School of Medicine Dean Paul Ramsey points out, the combination will boost the possibilities for integrated education possibilities between health sciences disciplines. 

Expected to be another cornerstone of the University District, the facility will be part of a cluster of life sciences educational activity.

About a half-mile west of the site for the new building is Washington State University’s young Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine. Eastern Washington University’s health sciences and public health programs are located in the district as well.

While we are encouraged by construction plans and investments in facilities, the benefits of medical education proliferation in Spokane aren’t limited to a brick-and-mortar presence. It isn’t even just the positives that come with training more health care professionals and adding academic jobs. 

All of those are good for the Inland Northwest, but the business community as a whole stands to benefit most from programs and initiatives that come out of academic endeavors, as well as research and the ultimate potential for commercialization of that research.

We see examples of innovation already with initiatives such as WSU’s Gleason Institute for Neuroscience. Named after former WSU and NFL football player and ALS sufferer Steve Gleason, the center is part of a larger mission to create an integrated approach to treating neurodegenerative disease, with the ultimate goal of eventually curing them. 

That’s part of a larger effort to develop a neurosciences hub in Spokane, an effort that involves both UW-GU and WSU, as well as both Providence Health Care and MultiCare, among others. 

WSU also is announcing this week unveiling of a new medical unit and a nonprofit health network. The university is in its third year of educating future physicians, and it’s growing its presence aggressively. We’re glad to see it.

Five years ago, there was some debate about whether Spokane would be able to support two medical schools, much of which was centered around a study that suggested it couldn’t do so. Now, the Spokane community has WSU’s medical school and an expanded presence and commitment from UW. We hope both continue to expand and flourish, for the benefit of the community as a whole.