By - Associated Press - Thursday, November 20, 2014

ROANOKE, Va. (AP) - The group awarded a $25 million grant to create a medical school in southwest Virginia says a plan to create a virtual health science center with multiple partners is a better option.

The Alliance for Rural Health issued a report to the Virginia tobacco commission last week arguing against creating a new medical school, The Roanoke Times (http://bit.ly/1zGlgeC)) reported.

As a result of considerable study and dialogue, it became clear to the planners in our tobacco-affected Southwest Virginia region (as defined) that starting a medical school was not the best way to achieve increase in physicians, said the report.

The tobacco commission first awarded a $25 million to the project - then called the King School of Medicine - in 2009. But the project has languished since then. The commission voted to strip the grant of $5 million earlier this year and told the projects leaders to submit a plan detailing how it plans to proceed.

The group said it plans to partner with several organizations - including Emory & Henry College, East Tennessee State University, the Mountain States Health Alliance and the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine in Blacksburg - to create a virtual, distributed collaborative health science center.

State Sen. Ralph Smith, R-Bedford County and a member of the commission, said he is not impressed with the groups new plan.

There is an admission that a medical school for far Southwest Virginia is not feasible, from the same entity that is repeatedly claiming there is a great need for a medical school, Smith said. He added that the project spent five years trying to put lipstick on a pig.

Now theyre turning that pig around and are going to try the other end, he said.

The groups executive director, Tariq Zaidi, is set to address the tobacco commission in January.

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Group changes plan for Va. medical school grant