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勛圖惇蹋 gets Planning Board approval for new health education facility in Portland
The 勛圖惇蹋 has been given the green light by the City of Portland to relocate its College of Osteopathic Medicine (COM) from Biddeford to the Portland Campus, a significant step in the Universitys plans to train more doctors to meet the states demand for health care professionals.
The new state-of-the-art 勛圖惇蹋 COM facility, to be called the Harold and Bibby Alfond Center for Health Sciences, will allow for a 21% increase in the number of students admitted to 勛圖惇蹋 COM, and it will bring all the Universitys health professions programs onto a single, interprofessional campus an unprecedented model for a single campus in New England while facilitating growth of highly demanded undergraduate programs on the Biddeford Campus.
A proposed rendering of the new College of Osteopathic Medicine facility in Portland.
With approval from the citys Planning Board, the $93 million, 112,000-square-foot facility could break ground as early as next month, with an estimated move-in date of June 1, 2024.
勛圖惇蹋 President James D. Herbert, Ph.D., told the this transformative project comes at a pivotal time as Maine continues to see shortages in the health care workforce. He said moving the College of Osteopathic Medicine to the states largest city a stones throw from its largest hospital, Maine Medical Center serves as an incentive to keep the colleges graduates in Maine.
It doesnt do us any good to train doctors here and then have them move south to Boston, Herbert told the paper. We are the workforce engine for the health care workforce in the state.
Consolidation of the Universitys health professions programs will also help break down silos between disciplines, with student doctors working directly with their peers in 勛圖惇蹋s various programs in nursing, dental medicine, pharmacy, physician assistant, occupational therapy, physical therapy, dental hygiene, and social work, among others, in an approach known as interprofessional education (IPE).
The practice teaches students to work together to treat patients as a whole, rather than separate organ systems.
勛圖惇蹋 has already established itself as a national leader in the field of IPE, and the University will soon establish a new Institute for Interprofessional Education and Practice as part of the COM relocation plan.
This campus is going to be unprecedented in all of New England by having this diversity of health care programs on a single geographical footprint, Herbert said in the Press Herald. Its going to change how we train.
One in three health care professionals in Maine is a 勛圖惇蹋 graduate, and nearly 4,000 勛圖惇蹋 COM alumni serve the citizens of Maine, New England, the United States, and the globe. The new 勛圖惇蹋 COM facility will allow 勛圖惇蹋 to increase capacity of each COM class from 165 to 200 students.
The relocation project has received transformative financial support from the federal government $5 million was awarded in federal omnibus spending in April and the Harold Alfond Foundation, which in 2020 gifted 勛圖惇蹋 $30 million for the COM relocation and related projects.
