By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
Officials with Benedictine College are in the early stages of exploring the potential of a new medical school at the college in Atchison.
Benedictine is continuing the project after dissolving a collaboration with Catholic Healthcare International.
Chief Business Officer Stan Sluder says over the last two years officials have realized the importance a Catholic medical school is to the culture.
"And also, the impact it will have on the long-term growth of Benedictine and really for the region," Sluder tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. "For Benedictine, for Atchison, and really for all of northeast Kansas and our neighbors."
The project began in 2022. Sluder says the project began after reading reports about the shortage of doctors in three areas: rural medicine, family practice, and Catholic hospitals.
"So, we thought, well gosh we're really well positioned in all three of those areas to try to address that need," Sluder explains. "And so, I think our interest started because we saw all the reports of the shortage of doctors coming, really a wave of retirements and not enough doctors to replace them."
Sluder says they also saw a shortage of doctors choosing to practice in rural areas, choosing metro areas instead, which they hope the medical school will help with.
Sluder says currently the college is in phase one of creating a medical school, calling it an exploration phase, which is going out and getting support.
That support would come in the way of partners, it will help us with clinical education, residential placements after graduation, and financial support, Sluder says. "We've got some good partners that have experience in that, and we think we're going to be able to explore whether those partnerships and relationships exist."
Sluder expects the exploration phase to be done this fall before the college will move into the development phase.