Gov. Butch Otter called this “an exciting day for the entire state of Idaho,” saying, “We are pleased to announce that the Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine has made a commitment to locate on the Idaho State University Meridian Health Care Center campus. And the best part of this is that it will be funded through private investors who will not only build the building at the ISU campus, but they will manage the the medical school,” through a public-private partnership. “Preference will be given to Idaho students,” Otter said.

Flanked by a big crowd of supporters including white-coated doctors, ISU President Art Vailas, state schools Superintendent Sherri Ybarra, Meridian Mayor Tammy DeWeerd and more, Otter said, “We treated this as we would any site selection, and we went after this opportunity very aggressively.”

Otter said he’s long supported expanding medical education in Idaho, and lauded JFAC for today approving five new WWAMI seats and two new University of Utah medical seats through cooperative programs. Idaho ranks 49^th in the nation for its number of doctors per-capita, Otter said, and all those efforts plus the new medical school are much-needed.

Sen. Marv Hagedorn, R-Meridian, said, “Here’s a hundred-million-dollar opportunity , not only that came to Idaho to place a school here, to teach doctors, to help Idahoans for the next 50 years, but here’s a state that was able to turn on a dime in just over 30 days and react to that opportunity and make it happen. I think we should be very proud of the director of the Department of Commerce, the president of ISU, both of them had great teams behind them. That’s the greatest takeaway here: Idaho is nimble enough to make this kind of thing happen.”

House Speaker Scott Bedke, R-Oakley, said, “I can’t help but think of the junior high school student that’s going to watch this on the news tonight, and he’s going to say, ‘Hmm, I can go to an Idaho medical school. … I can be a doctor.”