About Our School
Mission Statement: Paul L. Foster School of Medicine
The mission of the Paul L. Foster School of Medicine at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center at El Paso is to provide exceptional opportunities for students, trainees, and physicians; to advance knowledge through innovative scholarship and research in medicine with a focus on international health and health care disparities; and to provide exemplary patient care and service to the entire El Paso Community and beyond.
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In 1999, then Texas Tech System Chancellor John T. Montford shared with the Board of Regents a vision for a full-fledged four-year medical school in El Paso. A four-year medical school in El Paso could help alleviate a severe shortage of physicians in the area. Currently, there are less than 110 physicians for every 100,000 people in El Paso. The national average is 198 physicians per 100,000 population. The Texas average is only 150 per 100,000. Studies have shown that most medical students remain in the region in which they received their education to establish their practices. The addition of the first two years of the medical school will allow students from El Paso and nearby regions to complete their education near home. It is hoped this effort will help retain doctors in the area.
On December 9, 2003, the ground breaking for El Paso Medical Science Building I took place and two years later, January 31, 2006, a ribbon cutting followed. The 93,000 square-foot facility will house research on diabetes, cancer, environmental health and infectious diseases, as well as a repository dedicated to data on Hispanic health and a genomic facility to link hereditary diseases in families. With the Hispanic population increasing throughout the United States, El Paso has become the new face of the nation. Understanding Hispanic and Border health issues will help scientists better understand the nation as a whole. Biomedical research conducted in El Paso will take on enormous importance and form the base of knowledge our country needs, for today and tomorrow.
In December of 2005, a ground breaking was held for the medical classroom building. That building is expected to open in November of 2007. The 125,000 square-foot building has four floors and a partial penthouse. Included in the plans are classrooms, a library, small group rooms, a clinical skills area for students, faculty and administrative areas, basic sciences labs, a gross anatomy lab, a student services area, and food services.
Students graduating now from Texas Tech's El Paso campus will have seen diseases that only a small fraction of medical students ever come across in their four years of medical school. El Paso students may encounter biblical diseases such as plague, and other ailments that have virtually been wiped out in the United States, but flourish in many emerging nations. The volume of patients our students see is greater than at other campuses and it provides an intense learning environment—allowing our future doctors to learn so much more than classic "text book" cases.