HOUSTON – On Thursday, the University of Houston got one step closer to opening the first medical school in Houston in nearly a half century.
The UH Board of Regents approved the MacGregor site on the UH campus, an undeveloped 43-acre piece of land the university bought in 2008.
It’s near MacGregor Park on MLK at Old Spanish Trail.
“It's in this community, the community we hope to serve (to) help improve health and health care,” said Dr. Stephen Spann, founding dean of the College of Medicine.
The school’s mission is to fill the gap of primary care physicians, particularly in under-served communities. Texas ranks 47 out of 50 states in primary care physician to population ratio.
“We have a significant number of geographic communities with major health disparities, some of which have health indexes that are similar to the developing world. So we have a lot of work to do,” Spann said.
The goal is to have 50 percent of the graduates practice primary care. The national average is about 25 percent. The university can next begin negotiating and executing contracts for design and construction.
The goal is to have the building complete by 2022.
