The University of Utah took its mission to serve all of Utah—including meeting patients where they are and providing exceptional healthcare across the state—on the road this month.

As part of a statewide tour to celebrate the university’s 175th anniversary, U leaders used the road trip to continue conversations about expanding graduate medical education into rural and underserved Utah communities in hopes of building on existing partnerships with Intermountain Health and Utah Tech University to support a new Southern Utah Regional Medical Campus.

“We’re in a unique moment. We’ve got to really start thinking about collaboration,” said President Taylor Randall, in a meeting with leaders at Utah Tech University on June 12. “The challenge that lies before us is to enhance our partnership and combine our strengths in new ways that serve the citizens of the state.”

The need for primary care is particularly acute in underserved parts of the state, far from the population centers of the Wasatch Front. Utah currently ranks last among all the states for its proportion of primary care physicians—60.2 per 100,000 population. And even fewer—just 11%—work in rural parts of the state.

In an effort to address that shortage, Utah legislators set aside $5.5 million in annual ongoing funding in 2025 for the University of Utah to expand the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine’s student body with an initial rural cohort of 10 students that could expand to include another 10 medical residents over time.

“We are excited about the opportunity, supported by our legislature, to expand the presence of the Spencer Fox Eccles School of Medicine to a new campus in rapidly growing Southern Utah,” said Bob Carter, senior vice president for health sciences. “This will open new pathways for students from this region to be inspired to build a long-term medical career in this part of the state and directly serve the healthcare needs of their community.”

Using a unique and accelerated three-year curriculum model and a new, 11-month longitudinal residency program, university leaders hope to buck medical school structures that encourage specialization and tap into the aspirations and motivations of rural students who want to provide care in their communities, but don’t see a path forward. Just 40% of medical students stay in the communities where they complete their schooling, but 70% of those who complete both medical school and residency in the same community stay to set up practice.

“Primary care keeps us healthy and out of hospitals. We really need to broaden access in our state, so folks get the care that they need,” said Michelle Hofmann, interim dean of the Southern Utah Regional Medical Campus. “We’re committed to being part of solving that problem.”

Beginning in the fall of 2026, the inaugural class of a Southern Utah Regional Medical Campus could begin a three-year medical school curriculum in Salt Lake City. Their first year would be spent in study at the U. A second and third year of training, including residency, would be centered in Southern Utah and begin in 2029.

Before that can happen, the university must build out partnerships with Utah Tech for educational spaces and healthcare providers and systems to provide clinical training programs for the cohort. With a new medical school at Brigham Young University graduating as many as 250 additional students each year, Utah could potentially educate more than 700 medical students a year, but the state currently has 239 residency spots annually, Hofmann noted. The need to develop Graduate Medical Education and the preceptors—working physicians who teach medical students on the job during residency—will become even more critical.

During the 2025 tour, university leaders met with executives at Intermountain Health St. George Regional Hospital and Utah Tech to discuss ways to expand healthcare education and residency programs in Southern Utah. St. George’s population is expected to double to 400,000 by 2050.

The U and Intermountain already have deep-seated partnerships in health care, including at Primary Children’s Hospital, the university’s Simulation Center located at the College of Nursing, and a Population Health Scholars program, which helps students committed to primary care earn reimbursement for their medical school costs.