University of Minnesota, CentraCare outline St. Cloud regional medical campus, funding and residency growth plan

CentraCare and University of Minnesota officials told the Board of Regents’ Academic Health Committee that a new Saint Cloud regional medical campus aims to train physicians who will stay and practice in greater Minnesota.

At the meeting Chair Wheeler introduced CentraCare president and CEO Ken Holman and CentraCare senior vice president and chief financial officer Mike Blair, who laid out enrollment, funding and residency plans for the regional campus. “We have 24 students arriving here in August,” Mike Blair said, noting a 100% acceptance rate from offers the campus extended.

The university framed the initiative as a workforce and access strategy that ties undergraduate medical education to graduate medical education. “We were over this. It is the aging population… 25 percent of the physicians in rural area will retire by 2027,” Vice President Toler told the committee, describing the program as part of the medical school’s broader mission to serve the state.

Blair provided concrete financial and capacity numbers: CentraCare has spent $19,000,000 opening the facility, invested $21,000,000 in adjacent housing, is projecting about $10,000,000 in net operating support over 10 years, and is running a $50,000,000 philanthropic campaign that has raised $30,000,000 so far. He said the effort also secured $5,000,000 in state funding and $10,000,000 toward startup costs.

To prevent graduating students from being “stranded,” officials said CentraCare and the university plan to expand residency positions from about 18 now to roughly 72 slots so that each entering class can continue into local residency training. “We need to have 24 residency spaces,” Blair said, adding that the program will prioritize specialties with rural shortages, including family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, psychiatry, obstetrics and general surgery.

The presenters described clinical partnerships that will rotate trainees between metro specialty centers (for example, children’s hospital rotations) and rural sites, and noted participation from the VA and state human services in some rotations. Blair said University of Minnesota physicians will travel to St. Cloud to provide specialty care that would otherwise require patients to go to the Twin Cities.

President Joan Cunningham (as identified at the meeting) thanked CentraCare and stressed that Saint Cloud’s success depends on preserving a strong, accredited Twin Cities medical school with robust research and faculty capacity. “The St. Cloud campus is not a medical school, it’s a campus of our medical school,” Cunningham said, urging continued focus on the university’s central programs that undergird regional efforts.

Regents and student representatives praised the partnership’s potential to boost rural health and local economies. Regent Huebsch highlighted downstream economic development in small towns; student representative Pete Smith described a Rural Medical Scholars Program rotation at a CentraCare site as a retention tool; another student urged continued acceptance of international medical graduates and suggested longer community-based placements.

The meeting included detailed comparisons of clinical capacity and case-mix between University of Minnesota Medical Center and St. Cloud Hospital, and repeated reminders that the project combines capital investment, philanthropy and ongoing operating support from CentraCare and other partners. The committee adjourned after speakers expressed thanks and noted plans for a July ribbon-cutting celebration.

Closing note: no formal votes or motions were recorded in this session; the discussion focused on the presentation, commitments and next steps for implementation and oversight.