Virginia Tech and Carilion Health System confirmed a report in The Roanoke Times Thursday that they're discussing plans to open a medical school in Roanoke to address future physician shortages and patients' ongoing interest in new medical treatments.

It would be the fifth medical school in Virginia and the second in Southwest Virginia. Community leaders expressed enthusiasm for the project. A representative of a group of doctors who oppose Carilion's proposed restructuring expressed concern.

Some discussions have envisioned the school occupying space in the Riverside Center business park south of downtown Roanoke, a park established with an investment of more than $20 million by the city of Roanoke in partnership with Carilion. But the school might end up someplace else, too.

Tech and Carilion have already made public plans for a medical research institute in the park but have not offered details. The Riverside Center is also the future home of the Carilion Clinic medical office building, now under design. A new, four-story office building is open. A medical school beside them would create a center for health care, research, education and business.

"At this point, it's an idea, a neat idea," said Tech spokesman Larry Hincker, speaking of the school, the latest addition to the future biomedical vision for South Jefferson Street at Reserve Avenue. "Both our organizations are excited about it."

Carilion spokesman Eric Earnhart said Carilion's leadership is "excited about the possibilities" presented by the school concept.

Neither side released details.

The nation needs more doctors. The Association of American Medical Colleges in Washington, D.C., has called for a 30 percent increase in medical school enrollment by 2015. Increasing enrollment at the nation's 125 medical schools, now at 67,000, is believed to offer only part of the solution.

"To meet the future needs of the region, new medical schools are going to have to be created somewhere," Earnhart said. "We feel starting these discussions is a way to look at future needs and prepare to meet them."

Virginia has about 28,000 doctors, with 500 to 600 of them practicing in the Roanoke Valley. But the valley's medical community is graying. The average age of all doctors on the Carilion Medical Center medical staff is 49 and, in 2009, 44 percent will be more than 55 years old, Carilion said. Some specialists are in short supply. For instance, an analysis last spring found all six of the valley's dermatologists booked solid for months.

Carilion has said a major focus of its initiative to form the Carilion Clinic is to expand physician training education in the region. But before this week, it wasn't known they were thinking about a new medical school.

Just three years ago, the Edward Via Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine opened in Blacksburg to strong demand from would-be doctors. The private college, founded to add family doctors in rural communities throughout the central Appalachians, last year drew 2,300 applications for 159 seats. Specific costs to establish the Blacksburg school weren't available Thursday. Officials said before it opened that the Harvey W. Peters Foundation had supplied $20 million to launch the school and placed nearly $18 million in a reserve fund to ensure the school's initial stability, for a total of $38 million.

Another new medical school, in either Roanoke or Blacksburg, could turn out even more doctors, while enhancing Virginia Tech's campaign to be one of the nation's top research institutions. Hincker said the school could foster life sciences research and help land important research grants. In addition, he said, the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine could be a resource for human health-related research.

Meanwhile, businesspeople and economic development officials in Roanoke said a medical school in the city could boost efforts to move the region further along the path to an "innovation economy."

Ed Hall, chairman and president of Hall Associates, a commercial real estate firm, said a medical school could offer profound benefits for the Roanoke Valley. A school would help attract young professionals, increase access to health care, create a new image for Roanoke and "be a great economic engine," he said.

"I would be excited if it happened tomorrow," said Hall.

Hall's company is the commercial real estate firm under contract with Carilion to market the Riverside Center property.

Phil Sparks, executive director of the Roanoke Valley Economic Development Partnership, said the medical school could help his organization recruit biotechnology and biomedical companies to the region.

In recent years, he said, the partnership has visited biomedical and biomedical device companies in both the U.S. and Canada. "But, in almost every case, they indicated they were looking for regions that have medical schools and medical research facilities," said Sparks.

A new medical school and associated research and development would allow the region to "compete with the world for the knowledge-based jobs that are so desired today," he said.

Victor Iannello, a member of the Carilion Medical Center's board of directors and president of a high-tech company in Roanoke County, added, "although there are some companies in the region -- such as ITT Night Vision -- that have benefited from contracts from the Department of Defense, few organizations have benefited from contracts from the National Institutes of Health."

He said research would "inevitably lead to commercial ventures in the form of spin-off companies or licensing opportunities."

Officials cautioned that their talks are preliminary. Key financial details, including capital investment, potential student enrollment, payroll, faculty and staff hirings, income and expenses, haven't been calculated. There are options, Hincker said, about how a partnership between Carilion and Virginia Tech could play out.

"You can pull a dozen business models out of the sky," he said.

There is, for instance, the Virginia Tech-Wake Forest School of Biomedical Engineering and Sciences -- a collaboration between a public school and a private school in different states.

Before forming the new school, Virginia Tech had a college of engineering but no medical school; Wake Forest had a medical school but no college of engineering.

Also, Tech shares some faculty and research facilities with the Blacksburg osteopathic medical school.

Carilion, too, brings education experience to the table.

Enrollment at its Jefferson College of Health Sciences in Roanoke is approaching 1,000. The school, which offers nursing, physician assistant, paramedic and other programs, is scheduled to relocate in 2008 to Carilion Roanoke Community Hospital, which is scheduled to close for inpatient services.

But the concept is not without critics even at this early stage.

"We don't understand the need for it. You've got VCOM [Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine] down the street. You've got UVa up the other direction," said Geoff Harter, a Roanoke doctor and spokesman for the Coalition for Responsible Healthcare.

The coalition has strongly questioned Carilion's ongoing restructuring to transform itself into a group medical practice.

Harter also questioned whether it's wise for Carilion to divert funds to such a project.

duncan.adams@roanoke.com 981-3324

jeff.sturgeon@roanoke.com 981-3251