When critics question how effectively the Virginia Tobacco Commission is using hundreds of millions of dollars the state received from the National Tobacco Settlement there's one project that always seems to come up.
It started five years ago as a $25-million grant to establish a medical school in Bristol. Since then the only two things that have been consistent about the plan are the absence of any apparent progress and the Tobacco Commission's continuing support.
In his first two years on the Tobacco Commission Senator Ralph Smith has kept a close eye on the Southwest Virginia Medical School Project and its several transformations.
"It started out with King College and then King College no longer had any interest and then it went through a Tennessee University and they were in and it drug out for a while and they said this is not for us and then it came to another Virginia University that is toying with the idea”
As of May the involved school was Emory and Henry University but backers of the project were no longer talking about founding a medical college but instead turning an empty hospital in Marion into a satellite campus of the UVA School of Medicine. That idea failed to impress Smith who questions the lack of significant private investment among other things. He also wonders where the new campus would send its graduates for residencies with new med schools in Roanoke and Blacksburg filling so many of those slots.
"Yes you can wish and maybe you find the students but then you have to send them out of state because new schools have taken up all these residencies."
The Tobacco Commission's Interim Executive Director Tim Pfohl acknowledges disappointment after five years with no med school in sight. But he says another report is due from Southwest Virginia in November.
"They've got another chance to come back to us and tell us that the prospects look good and the Commission has a decision to make."
After all this time how many more chances do they have? Is this the point at which they have to prove the idea is viable?
"Certainly as the Commission has done over the last two or three years it's possible that the project team could be given some additional time but I'm not going to speculate about what's in their progress report in mid-November because we haven't seen it yet."
The Commission's Southwest Virginia subcommittee recommended killing the project last spring, but at the apparent urging of Chairman Terry Kilgore the Commission decided the next day to rescind 20-percent of the grant and leave 20-million dollars on the table to await further developments. That 14-13 vote was taken while one member was out of the room answering her phone.
The Tobacco Commission will consider the Southwest Med School again at its next meeting in January.
