A group of community members are hoping to start a new medical school in Shasta. Here’s what we know

Efforts are being made to open a new medical school in Shasta County, though it’s uncertain exactly what that might look like. 

A group of community members started officially meeting about five months ago to develop ideas for a North State medical school, citing a local health care crisis attributed to a lack of physicians and providers in the area. 

The group — the Rural Northern California Medical Education Consortium, as they call it — is composed of eight physicians, educators, health care leaders and community partners. It includes Simpson University President Dr. Norm Hall, Redding City Council Vice Mayor and gastroenterologist Dr. Paul Dhanuka, Shasta Health and Human Services Director Christy Coleman and former Shasta Community Health Center CEO Dean Germano, among others. 

The consortium’s leaders see a medical school as a long-term strategy to strengthen rural health care in the North State and retain physicians in the region. 

“This will become an institution for generations to come,” Dhanuka said in an interview with Shasta Scout. 

Currently, the consortium hopes to open the school as part of Simpson University. But it takes years to open and establish a medical school, so the future — including if such a school will come to fruition — is still uncertain. 

How did the idea for a new medical school come about?

For years, Shasta County has faced a health care provider shortage and in June, Shasta Health Officer Dr. James Mu declared a public health crisis — which is not the same as a health emergency — due to the lack of physicians. His declaration came after the Shasta Board of Supervisors hired political commentator and activist Chriss Street as the county’s health care consultant early this year in an effort to find solutions to the provider shortage. Street’s recommendation was to open a medical school in the county. 

But conversations around starting a new medical school began even before he was hired. Dhanuka said he spoke with several community members about their frustrations with the provider shortage in Shasta while he was running for the Redding City Council in 2024, and a plan to set the concept of a medical school in motion became part of his campaign. He presented the idea of a medical school to the Redding council along with Street shortly after he became a council member.

Dhanuka said the lack of medical schools in the North State is an issue that hits close to home: He said while his daughter had an impressive GPA and received an almost perfect score on the Medical College Admission Test, or MCAT, she couldn’t secure a spot at a medical school in California because of a low number of spots compared to schools in other states. He also said California has fewer medical school seats than many other states — a problem he linked to the North State’s provider shortage, along with there being no medical schools nearby.

While it’s true that there are no medical schools in California north of Sacramento, the state actually has the third-most medical students in the country — though California has lower ratios of medical students per 100,000 residents than most states. And overall, there are significantly more medical schools in the eastern half of the U.S. than the western. 

Dhanuka also feels that opening a medical school in Shasta will encourage prospective medical students to stay in the North State, as well as help inspire younger generations in the region to pursue a medical degree.

“When they see they can achieve these things right here in our community,” he said, “they may not have to go outside the area, because a lot of young people here find it difficult to afford to go out for further education. Whether it’s professional or technical, it’s very expensive.” 

After speaking with community members about the provider shortage issue and the potential solution of opening a new medical school, Dhanuka started discussing the idea with local health care and government leaders. He also connected with Simpson University President Dr. Norm Hall to discuss opening the medical school as part of the university, something Hall supports — though the university president said he’d be open to considering other options that don’t involve Simpson, if need be. 

“Whether it’s Simpson University or not, I’m committed to the North State,” Hall said, “and I’ll bring whatever expertise I can to bear on that.”

Simpson University has been a primary focus in the consortium’s plan for the medical school because it’s the only four-year university in Shasta, Dhanuka said, a requirement to receive accreditation. Hall added that the university has other benefits, including a successful nursing program, the upcoming launching of a doctor of psychology degree program and what he described as connections and “expertise” with federal grants. 

The consortium is also considering other options, including partnering with the University of California Davis to bring a branch campus to Shasta. 

Dhanuka formed a group of interested community members, and they started meeting in July of this year to develop their plan. The Rural Northern California Medical Education Consortium was formed over the following months. Street, the county health care consultant, is not involved with the consortium or the project. 

Is a medical school the answer to Shasta’s provider shortage? 

Dr. Irene Salter, a neuroscientist, educator and leadership coach — and Shasta Scout board member — is also involved in the consortium for the new medical school. She said people living in the North State who are interested in becoming a physician have to travel elsewhere, oftentimes to other states, in order to receive their medical education, making it less likely for them to return to Shasta to work.

“What if instead, we could educate our own and keep them here?” Salter said. “Then they have this long term commitment to our community.”

But the state or region where a physician went to medical school isn’t the only, or even the primary, determining factor of where they’re likely to settle down after their training.

It’s actually more likely that a physician stays in the state where they completed residency, not medical school. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, almost 60% of physicians stay in the state where they completed residency. However, it’s most likely that physicians who complete all of their training in one state, including both medical school and residency, stay in that state. 

While California does have more residency programs, as well as medical schools, than most other states, there are significantly more medical residency and fellowship programs in the eastern half of the U.S. than the western. For example, only about 20% of some of the most popular residency programs and crucial areas of medical practice — internal medicine, family medicine and surgery — are located in the western half of the country. 

So why not add more residency programs out west? It turns out it’s not that simple.

The largest federal funding source for residencies and fellowships is Medicare. In its inception of Medicare in the 1960s, Congress allocated funding for residencies through the Graduate Medical Education program to support teaching hospitals that train physicians. In 1997 the funding was capped, limiting the number of positions that teaching hospitals receive funding for.

Despite the cap on Medicare-funded GME that ensures residency training, the number of medical school graduates has significantly increased over the last two decades, meaning more people are getting a medical education than there are Medicare-funded residency slots. In 2022, more than 3,300 medical school graduates did not receive residency slots.

When confronted with research that shows physicians are more likely to settle down where they did residency, not medical school, Dhanuka demurred, saying, “That data gets quoted a lot, but it’s not the hard reality.” He explained that residency and fellowship programs must be sponsored by institutions, like medical schools, and that the entities go hand-in-hand, citing the fact that physicians are more likely to stay in the area where they completed both medical school and residency. 

Dhanuka said he sees the medical school as a long-term solution for Shasta’s provider shortage, but that the consortium is also working to expand residency and fellowship programs in the area. The medical school would also sponsor more residency and fellowship programs in the North State once it’s established, he said. 

Shasta Supervisor Matt Plummer was initially involved in conversations about establishing a medical school in the county because he wanted to address the medical provider shortage problem. He still feels the idea of a medical school is worth looking into as a long-term strategy, but acknowledges that it won’t be a viable solution if there aren’t similar investments made into the residency programs and clinical rotations that will help students stay in the North State.

Plummer is advocating for further conversations with UC Davis establishing a medical school in Redding as a branch campus, something the consortium is considering. But Dhanuka said the UC system is a large institution with a lot of state involvement, meaning the process of getting a UC Davis branch established here might be slow, and it wouldn’t have as much of a focus on rural northern California as a brand new medical school launched here would. 

Shasta HHSA Director Christy Coleman is also involved in the consortium as a representative from the county. She said since the county is very focused on improving the health of Shasta residents, especially when it comes to mental and behavioral health, the county supports the consortium’s efforts.

What’s the current vision for the medical school? 

Since it takes several years to open and establish a medical school and conversations are in very early stages, there are still a lot of uncertainties when it comes to the specifics of a potential project. 

What is proposed is that the school would have a rural, community focus, aiming to transform rural and tribal health care in the North State region by training generations of physicians and, hopefully, retaining many of them in the process. The project organizers hope building a school and expanding residency and fellowship programs would also lead to overall improvements in health care access across the North State. 

Consortium leaders plan to form a nonprofit entity and pursue large federal grants as a jumpstart for funding. 

Among many remaining questions, the consortium has not yet decided whether to launch a Doctor of Medicine (MD) or Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO) school, determined how much funding it’ll take to open the school, decided whether the school will be part of Simpson University or not and planned for when the school might open.

The press release explained that in general terms, establishing a medical school takes around seven to 10 years, and that a minimum of $30 million to $50 million would need to be raised in startup funds. As part of the launch process, proper accreditation would also need to be secured, a monumental task in itself.

Dhanuka said some people in the community have been skeptical about Shasta having enough of the needed professionals to provide faculty options for the medical school to successfully operate. While staffing may be a challenge, he feels there’s enough talent in the area for the school and residency programs, and that the school itself will likely attract people from all over the nation. Overall, Dhanuka feels that the school would act as a hub for the North State that would bring major impacts in a variety of ways, including to the local economy. 

As next steps, along with gaining nonprofit status, the consortium plans to develop a formal feasibility study and multi-year strategic plan for the project, then seek letters of support from various entities, including hospitals, clinics, tribal nations, regional stakeholders, educational institutions and economic leaders. 

Meanwhile, consortium members are organizing site visits to rural medical schools in other parts of the country to learn about how they operate. In February, Simpson President Hall plans to take a small group to the University of Pikeville-Kentucky, which hosts a medical school that was created to address a physician shortage in central Appalachia, according to the consortium’s press release. 

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