As plans for an independent medical school in Spokane move closer to exciting reality, some of the credit for pushing the effort along should go to a little known, but dedicated advocacy group comprised of business and community leaders and elected officials.

Co-chaired by former Greater Spokane Incorporated CEO Rich Hadley and Umpqua Bank executive Marty Dickinson, the group—Leaders for a WSU Medical School—formed only about six months ago, but has grown to include some of the Spokane area’s most prominent executives.

They share and have sought to champion a common belief that a second state-funded medical school, operated by Washington State University, is critical to the Inland Northwest’s and Washington state’s future. Rather than marginalizing efforts by the University of Washington to also expand medical education here, the group instead cites a projected severe shortage of physicians in the state by 2030 and says in a description of its objective: “We need both UW and WSU to expand to meet this need.”

As one of the advocacy group’s instigators, Hadley says he and Dickinson, who formerly had served as president of Downtown Spokane Partnership, believed “there was a need for a community voice” to support the medical school proposal.

 Their efforts, along with those of key legislators, Washington State University President Elson Floyd, and others, were rewarded last week when Gov. Jay Inslee signed into law a bill that clears the way for creation of the medical school.

Specifically, the new law amended a 98-year-old statute that gave the University of Washington exclusive rights to provide medical education in the state.

Now that the medical school policy issue has been decided, WSU said it is turning its attention to the state budget. It has asked lawmakers for $2.5 million to begin the accreditation process that could take as long as two years. Once preliminary accreditation has been granted, the university says it can begin recruiting and accepting students.

The goal is to admit the first WSU College of Medicine class to begin in August 2017.

To be sure, funding obstacles remain, but the locally established advocacy group appears determined to continue its work until the last of those are overcome. 

In a letter to Gov. Inslee in late March, Hadley and Dickinson—on behalf of the group—wrote that the medical school would “substantially increase our state’s ability to attract new federal research and grant dollars and will also allow Eastern Washington to share in the tremendous economic impact created by research commercialization.”

 They also said the group believes a WSU medical school “will be complementary to the University of Washington’s School of Medicine, and having both will strengthen our state’s health care and our innovation economy.”

We agree, and to the members of Leaders for a WSU Medical School, we say bravo for not being content to sit on the sidelines.