Published: 2:00 AM - 10/04/13

MIDDLETOWN Want to go to medical school in Middletown? They're taking applications.

Touro College, which is going to run the osteopathic medical school at the former Horton Hospital, recently received approval to start taking applications. As of Thursday, 2,000 of the 3,500 students who have applied to Touro to begin study in August checked off the Middletown campus as an option, said Kenneth Steier, the dean of the Middletown school.

Steier said he expects about 4,000 people to apply to Middletown for the first year. Only 135 will be accepted.

Steier estimated that about 70 percent of the renovation work at the former hospital is done; he expects it to be finished in the spring. He said the approval to start taking applications came after the American Osteopathic Association's accreditation team visited the campus and saw how far along renovations were.

"We've honored the memory of Horton community hospital by maintaining some of the Horton community hospital appearance, but we've also done the renovation necessary to have a medical school there," he said. "It really looks terrific."

Horton Hospital and Arden Hill Hospital in Goshen closed in 2011, when they consolidated at the new Orange Regional Medical Center in the Town of Wallkill.

The medical school, which will have 500 students when it's full in the fourth year, is expected to provide an economic boost to the area. Its backers also hope it will improve the area's health doctors often stay in the areas where they train.

Ten Touro students from the Harlem campus are already doing their third-year core clerkships at Orange Regional. Another pilot group will be going to Catskill Regional Medical Center in July, Steier said.

"The students have been having a great clinical experience," said Ron Israelski, director of medical education at Orange Regional, who has been heavily involved in the medical school project.

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New Middletown medical school taking applications