The Arizona Board of Regents approved a plan Friday that will expand the UA College of Medicine into downtown Phoenix, where a joint effort between UA and ASU is expected to strengthen the educational and research capabilities of the state.

The expansion on the Phoenix Biomedical Campus of the Arizona University System will eventually double the size of the medical school student body, said Keith Joiner, dean of the College of Medicine.

UA President Peter Likins said the expansion is a cost-effective way to meet the needs of the state, but he and others emphasized that a new medical school isn't being created.

"The College of Medicine will continue to be the University of Arizona College of Medicine at Phoenix," said Arizona Board of Regents President Gary Stuart. "It will remain directly connected to the UA in every programmatic theme we can imagine."

Though core curriculum will be dictated from the UA College of Medicine, Joiner said it will complement the school in Tucson, not unnecessarily duplicate it. Accreditation will be the same also.

This will mean more Arizonans interested in getting medical degrees will be able to do so, to the benefit of a state suffering from a shortage of physicians.

How much the expansion and research facilities will cost is still unknown. The UA's 2006 preliminary budget requests presented to regents on Friday included a request for $20 million to begin the expansion. ASU will be asking for $8 million.

The two universities will bring the UA colleges of medicine and pharmacy together with the ASU college of nursing at the Phoenix campus, and will band their faculty and research scientists together to staff new research facilities.

The plan, pioneered by Stuart, was revealed two weeks ago after Stuart, Likins and ASU President Michael Crow worked out the agreement while fishing at Vancouver Island.

"It's a unique model, we know of no other model like it," said Stuart, of the joint effort to create a "new era" medical school.

All regents voted to approve the expansion except Chris Herstam, who did not vote because of a conflict of interest. He heads a Phoenix law firm whose clients include the health care industry.

Crow said it's time the universities rise above "petty politics issues" to address the needs of the state. "We're committed to meeting the need to produce several hundred doctors a year, not just one hundred," Crow said.

Regents hailed the cooperation as a historic moment in which the two rivals put aside their differences to the benefit of the state.

Jacqueline Chadwick, vice dean of the College of Medicine in Phoenix, said Arizona ranks 41st in the nation in the number of doctors available per 100,000 people. Doubling the number of graduates from the college of medicine, the only medical college in the state, would help alleviate the shortage.

The college of medicine only accepts Arizona applicants and some applicants from Alaska, Montana and Wyoming who are certified by the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education.

Joiner said he does not know whether admission will open to other out of state applicants as the expansion takes in more students.

The college receives about 800 applications for admission per year, and of those, Joiner estimated about 100 are admitted.

Now, 40 percent of third and fourth year medical students go to Phoenix to get their clinical education.

Chadwick said many opt for Phoenix because they want to get experiences they can't get in Tucson, in community hospitals and specialty hospitals, like the state mental hospital and the children's hospital.

The greater population in Maricopa County also allows for more students to get trained in certain areas. Chadwick said 65 percent of medical students do their OB/GYN training in Phoenix simply because there are more deliveries there, where more than half of the state's residents live.

The medical school's Phoenix campus will cooperate with area hospitals and the Translational Genomics Institute, a biomedical research institute.

Jennifer Hartmark, a fourth year medical student who has been doing her clinical education in Phoenix for the past year, said she chose Phoenix because she is from the area.

Having recently bought a house in Phoenix with her husband, Hartmark said the news of an expanded campus there is welcome for students like her who commute back and forth between the two cities.

"When you have so many stresses on you, not being able to work and study in the place you want to live just makes life harder," Hartmark said.

Soon, medical students will be able to opt for studying in one of the two cities or in both. The universities also plan on intensifying distance education.

Hartmark also said there are more underserved communities in Phoenix and a greater need for medical students.

"The more medical residencies we can bring to the area, the better off patient care is," she said.

Hartmark said students will benefit just as much from the expansion as the state will.

"I think that Phoenix has so many phenomenal resources for people seeking an education in medicine," she said.

Chadwick agreed. "This is an extremely exciting opportunity for the state of Arizona and for the University of Arizona to expand the presence of the College of Medicine and other health services and to train doctors for the 21st century," she said.

For years there has been talk about expanding the medical college or creating a new one. Though the college of medicine wasn't consulted as the proposal developed, Joiner said Likins had seen a similar proposal he and faculty members had drawn up this summer.

"Everyone thought this should happen, and now it will happen," Joiner said.

"Before the presence in Phoenix had an uncertain future," Likins said. Now, he said, the college of medicine will round out its presence.

Likins and Crow will present a more detailed plan to the board of regents by January.