The Associated Press
OKLAHOMA CITY — The University of Oklahoma and the University of Tulsa hope to create a joint four-year community medical education program.
When OU regents meet Tuesday in Norman, they will consider a proposal to begin planning how the two schools can create such a program in Tulsa, according to an agenda item posted on OU’s Web site.
TU spokesman David Hamby said a press event is scheduled for Tuesday in Tulsa to make a formal announcement. Hamby said OU President David Boren, TU President Steadman Upham and OU-Tulsa President Gerry Clancy are scheduled to attend, but he declined to offer further details.
The posted OU regents agenda item didn’t include many details, but it noted the joint program “would be developed around the concept of a School of Community Medicine with emphasis on helping those most in need of medical care.”
OU received a $50 million gift in February 2008 from the Tulsa-based George Kaiser Family Foundation, which university officials said at the time would allow the College of Medicine at OU’s Tulsa campus to have the nation’s first officially named School of Community Medicine. That school now is operational.
OU’s medical education training program in Tulsa focuses on the third and fourth years of clinical medical education training. According to the agenda item, TU and OU-Tulsa previously have worked together to offer physician assistant training and also collaborated on joint research projects.
The agenda item describes the proposed effort to “develop an implementation plan” to create the joint community medical education program as an “extension of these successful joint education and research initiatives.”
TU is a private university with about 4,200 students, while OU is a public school with an enrollment of more than 30,000 students on its campuses in Norman, Oklahoma City and Tulsa.
