By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
The doors have officially opened to the new building housing the University of Missouri-Kansas City Medical School in St. Joseph.
The school had been functioning out of the Mosaic hospital campus, but cut the ribbon, with a scalpel rather than scissors, today on the new 22,000-square-foot building.
UMKC Chancellor Mauli Agrawal says to get to this point has been five years of hard work
“We started dreaming this five years ago planting a medical school here, we started the academic program it was housed in Mosaic’s hospital, and that has been great,” Agrawal tells reporters. “But we wanted a building of our own so we could put all the high-tech education right here in St. Joe, this is the most high-tech medical education I’ve seen anywhere, it’s happening right here in St. Joseph.”
Agrawal says while the high-tech facility does help the learning experience, the most vital piece of the facility is students learning in rural health clinics.
Agrawal points out two students that recently graduated from the school, took jobs with Mosaic, saying that the school shows students they don’t need to go to bigger cities, but rather can stay in rural communities to work.
Integral in getting the state funding for the school was St. Joseph State Representative Brenda Shields. Shields says the discussions on the school started after she lamented on the need for rural nursing education in St. Joseph.
Shields was persistent in getting the funding for the school, and says it was important for her, because it’s important to train rural physicians
“If you talked to anybody that lives in rural America, they talk how it takes months for them to be able to get an appointment or they have to drive miles and miles, well people will stop living in rural America if they can’t access the healthcare that they need,” Shields explains. “And for rural Missouri to be vibrant, we have to have healthcare, so that we can grow the economy of those communities.”
Shields says for students from around the area to have the opportunity to learn here and eventually stay here to serve their communities is a huge deal for bringing a school into St. Joseph as well.
The medical school has operated out of Mosaic having its first graduating class this past January, but the new facility offers those high-tech learning opportunities for students.
One of those students, Mikalah Brock, is from Maysville, and says getting to earn her M. D so close to home is very special to her
“Coming home and being around my family, having that support system, getting to go to my sister’s basketball games while I’m achieving my M.D, and getting to hear from the people in this area what healthcare challenges they’re having in real time, it’s amazing, it’s such an educational opportunity that I would not be able to get anywhere else,” Brock says.
Brock says though she will have to go away on residency, it is amazing to get to work close to home and build connections with physicians in the area that she’ll be able to contact when she is back practicing in the area.
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