Med school sprouts from tobacco fields

Source from:  JERRY ALLEGOOD (Raleigh) News & Observer GREENVILLE, N.C. 03/18/2008

No one envisioned a sprawling medical center in Greenville when East Carolina University began its quest for a medical school 40 years ago. Back then, Greenville was a quiet college town with a booming tobacco market and a small county hospital. Local doctors took turns working nights at the emergency room. But through the years, the medical school has transformed Pitt County Memorial Hospital and the region. Not only did the school boost health care in Greenville -- now there are about 500 doctors and 1,200 nurses on the hospital staff alone -- but it also fostered a far-reaching regional health care system serving 1.2 million people in 29 eastern North Carolina counties. Once the focus of long-running opposition from the state's higher education and medical establishment, the school is now benefiting from cooperation between former rivals ECU and UNC Chapel Hill. That translates into even more growth in Greenville, state and local officials say. With tobacco's decline and the near-extinction of small-town hospitals, this latest development boom underscores the medical complex's role as an economic engine and provider of rural doctors. "If you took East Carolina University -- and especially the medical school -- out of the east, we would look like a developing nation," said former U.S. Sen. Robert Morgan, an ECU graduate and longtime political supporter. The medical complex is already a bustling mix of university facilities and those of Pitt County Memorial Hospital, a 761-bed facility that is the university's main teaching unit. Towering nearby is Brody Medical Sciences Building. Joining the skyline is a six-story, $150 million tower, part of the new East Carolina Heart Institute, which will soon add 120 more beds. Another building will hold offices and labs. Nearby, construction is just getting under way on ECU's new dental school. The scope of facilities and services surprises even the most ardent ECU supporters. They sought a medical school simply to boost the number of doctors in rural communities. Instead, the hospital has become one of the area's largest employers, with 6,300 employees and an annual payroll of $344 million. The hospital has grown from a building worth $12 million in the mid-1970s to an $800 million facility with $600 million in projects planned. About 33,000 patients are admitted annually, and the hospital serves about 266,000 outpatients. In the 1960s, Morgan, then a state senator, was on the front lines in the early legislative struggles when ECU sought approval for a medical school. The idea was widely regarded as a pipe dream by an upstart teacher training school formerly called East Carolina Teacher's College. Opposition was formidable. Officials and supporters of the existing state-supported medical school at UNC Chapel Hill argued that it would be better to expand at UNC or private medical schools. Others wanted a medical school in Charlotte. Critics charged that a new school would be unnecessary. Study commissions agreed with critics. Major state newspapers, including The Charlotte Observer, weighed in with editorials and cartoons opposing the new school. But partisans and politicians, tapping regional pride and resentment against rival schools, built a coalition that prevailed by the 1970s. The legislature authorized a medical school as well as other programs aimed at the physician shortage. The first four-year class of 28 students enrolled in 1977. Despite a history of rivalry, officials at ECU and UNC say they are now working together on projects to improve health care, especially in rural areas. Enditem