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With Clovis Groundbreaking, Proposed Medical School One Step Closer To Reality

Kerry Klein
/
Valley Public Radio
California Health Sciences University administration and local elected officials broke ground on Wednesday on a new university campus in northeast Clovis.

The San Joaquin Valley’s newest university is expanding: On Wednesday, groundbreaking ceremony for a new campus of California Health Sciences University.

The 90-acre plot of land between Highway 168, Temperance and Alluvial Avenues in Clovis is part of the university’s plan to operate a family of schools of medicine and health. The School of Pharmacy’s inaugural class will graduate later this month.

The first new building will belong to a proposed College of Osteopathic Medicine, which could begin enrolling as early as fall 2020. University board chairman John Welty spoke at the groundbreaking. "Young people in Central California now can look to the opportunity to attend a medical school, a pharmacy school, and several other schools to come, and be right here," he said.

Also speaking was Ian Coolbear, a manager with Fresno Assemblymember Jim Patterson.

"Two of the most important topics here in Clovis and Fresno and the Central Valley are health care and education," he said, "and we are fortunate enough today to be at a groundbreaking at a facility that addresses both topics."

Per capita, the San Joaquin Valley has one of the lowest ratios of medical providers and training opportunities in the state.

Kerry Klein is an award-winning reporter whose coverage of public health, air pollution, drinking water access and wildfires in the San Joaquin Valley has been featured on NPR, KQED, Science Friday and Kaiser Health News. Her work has earned numerous regional Edward R. Murrow and Golden Mike Awards and has been recognized by the Association of Health Care Journalists and Society of Environmental Journalists. Her podcast Escape From Mammoth Pool was named a podcast “listeners couldn’t get enough of in 2021” by the radio aggregator NPR One.
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