Edited from a New England Council (newenglandcouncil.com) report

“The University of New England, will move its osteopathic medical school from Biddeford, Maine, to Portland. This new location will allow the university to expand the size of its facilities to accommodate more students, which will provide relief to the ongoing workforce problem in the health-care industry.

“This move will fast-track Portland (home of the Maine Medical Center) to be a regional hub for biotechnology and medicine. The university could break ground on this new construction in a month thanks to the Portland Planning Board’s unanimous approval of the plans. The construction will feature a 112,000 square-foot four-story central building to hold all the university’s health-care programs, including dentistry, nursing and the medical school itself.

UNE’s new facility will advance the college’s efforts in inter-professional education, an approach to training in which students are taught in a team-based, multidisciplinary setting. The new location will increase the number of students that the medical program can accommodate by 20 percent, raising the classes from 165 to 200 students. Additionally, the new facility will allow Maine Medical Center doctors to easily engage with UNE students because of the proximity to their facilities. This opens the doors to mentorship, teaching and continuing education in a lab setting for students.

UNE President James Herbert said, ‘We are the workforce engine for the health-care workforce in the state. I want UNE to be the national model for how you do IPE in rural settings’’’.