Ground Broken for Med School -Windsor Star

Friday » June 29 » 2007

Ground broken for med school

Thursday, June 28, 2007

CREDIT: Star photo/Rob Gurdebeke From left: Marty Komsa, chairman of the board, for the University of Windsor, M.P.P. Sandra Pupatello, Dr. Carol Herbert, Dean of the Shulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, M.P.P. Dwight Duncan and University of Windsor President Ross Paul, oficially break ground for the new University of Windsor Medical School at the University of Windsor.

Ground was officially broken Thursday for the satellite medical school at the University of Windsor.

Affiliated with the University of Western Ontario's Schulich School of Medicine and Dentistry, the $24-million stand-alone building will offer 24 spaces per year, and is scheduled to take in its first group in the fall of 2008.

The province is providing construction funding of $8 million, and local fund-raising efforts have begun. It is hoped that $10 million will come from private and corporate donors, and the rest from the community.

Windsor-Tecumseh MPP Dwight Duncan, who got the original development team rolling in 2001, said statistics from the U.S. show that a medical school the size of the one at Queens University, for example, can create 5,000 direct and 12,000 indirect jobs. While the Windsor campus won't produce those numbers right away, he said the presence of the school will attract bio-science and other medical-related industries, and will be vital in attracting and retaining doctors.

UWO professor Dr. Raphael Cheung said this area has attracted about 50 new doctors in the last year, and almost all said one of the reasons for coming here is the new medical school.

University of Windsor president Ross Paul said while the building has been assigned 24 spots, it is being built to handle double that amount in the expectation of future increases in medical school spots as the demand for doctors increases.