Saginaw site a possibility for medical complex
Partnerships for Central Michigan University's medical school plan is now under consideration with mid-Michigan health facilities, involving clinical affiliations that could exist in Saginaw in a matter of years.
Vacant land off the Saginaw River westbank was purchased in August by Michigan Healthpark Development for construction of a medical research complex, which Project Director Jeffrey Schell said offers a good possibility of a Saginaw-based partnership with CMU.
"I'm excited about the potential for CMU to come," he said. "What we want to ensure is that Central Michigan's medical school is successful in Saginaw ... If it's best for CMU to locate on the site, we'll do the best we can."
Sam Kottamasu, CMU Board of Trustees member and a Saginaw radiologist, is the chair for the Board's medical school committee and said accomplishing partnerships is the number one step, though nothing to his knowledge has progressed since the plan was officially approved at their Sept. 18 meeting.
"That is what is being negotiated right now," he said. "It's too soon to know because the (medical school) was just approved."
Earlier this year, Schell said there had been an informative discussion regarding CMU's partnership for the medical school's second two years of clinical clerkship in the area between Michigan Healthpark and several CMU officials, including Board of Trustees members and University President Michael Rao.
"It was a meeting to discuss the potential with the Saginaw, Michigan community," Schell said. "At that point, we said we'd do whatever we can."
Gerald Schell, Saginaw area neurologist and Jeffrey Schell's father, said nothing official had been decided, nor did CMU make any commitments. He said building on the proposed site could translate into a nice medical campus as it sits in the proximity of two hospitals.
"It'll be a mall-atmostphere for patients and also students," he said. "Certainly, there's incentive with CMU. We'll bend over backwards to get them to build on that site."
The partnership will depend all on CMU's accreditation from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, Kottamasu said, which takes looking at the requirements to pursue a medical school, and is something the Board does not handle directly.
"(The) Trustees support the project, but the administration are the ones who would look into accreditation requirements," he said.
Whether CMU is involved directly with the site off the Saginaw River's westbank, Jeffrey Schell said the planned structure will house a residency program for specialty training, meet mid-Michigan's lack of physicians and hopefully, become a central area for those seeking medical help to come from all over the state.
"By creating this center what we can do is create a much more efficient way to connect patients that need special care," he said. "We're going to need doctors."
Currently in the beginning phases of development, Jeffrey Schell said they are looking at architectural work and site planning for the site's analysis.
"What we've done is we've developed a plant to implement the first phrase of our project," he said. "The phase that we're working on is the environmental work on the property ... We've been planning phases and looking at different sites over two years now."
The focus of the health park is to be on the cutting edge, Gerald Schell said, incorporating various neuroscience technologies to help drive doctor recruitments and hopefully CMU's interest.
"Certainly, we're going to be moving ahead with out project," he said. "(But) we would hope CMU would meet with us and consider what we're doing ... The timing just kind of worked out perfect."
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