By 2010, a small, five-year medical school will stand south of downtown Roanoke turning out doctors who can not only give care but also invent new forms and styles of care, according to a vision sketched Wednesday by health and university officials who were joined by Gov. Tim Kaine.

Carilion Health System and Virginia Tech, who will be partners in the school, said about 40 students per graduating class will learn medical research along with the usual techniques for preventing, diagnosing and treating illness. That's a model used at only two other schools in the nation, officials said, and requires five years of study versus the usual four to earn an M.D.

Officials said that with a subsidy from the state, and using instructors already employed at Tech and Carilion, they can open the private school for "physician researchers" in 2009 or 2010.

The school will be situated in a redevelopment project to create a business park on South Jefferson Street at Reserve Avenue a short distance from Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital.

Plans for the school were first reported in The Roanoke Times in November.

Wednesday's press conference offered the first detailed picture of the school, which is supposed to unite Tech's science acumen with Carilion's medical skills. The two organizations are also among the region's two largest employers and economic engines.

With a startup expenses estimated at $30 million to $50 million for a building and operations during the first few years, advocates will be looking for a state appropriation "in the $10 million, $20 million category," said Charles Steger, Tech's president.

But a printed statement from the project's backers stated that, according to the American Association of Medical Colleges, medical schools cause the economies of their communities to grow. When a medical school spends $1, it creates $1.30 in economic activity, one study found.

The first graduates, assuming they will undergo at least two years of post-graduate training, could begin work in 2016 -- four years shy of the year when experts predict a looming doctor shortage to reach the critical stage.

Proponents said tuition will compare favorably with that of similar schools. Tuition and fees at private medical schools averaged $31,000 in 2002, according to the American Medical Student Association in Reston.

Though doctors begin work with heavy school debt, they earn many times the U.S. median pay of about $30,000 a year for women and $40,000 a year for men. Primary care doctors earned $168,111 a year and specialists earned $316,620 a year in 2005, according to a report on median pay levels from the Medical Group Management Association in Englewood, Colo.

"This will be a great asset for the medical community and the region," said Dr. Edward Murphy, Carilion's chief executive officer. "It will make the area more attractive for doctors we're recruiting now and increase the number of doctors who are likely to stay in the area after their medical training."

Each entity will own 50 percent of the new institution, which would become Virginia's fifth medical school.

In addition to a traditional med-school curriculum, students will learn research methods, conduct original research and write a research-rich thesis. That's modeled after approaches used by the health sciences and technology program at Harvard Medical School and Cleveland Clinic's Lerner College of Medicine.

The announcement comes at a time when doctors are closing their practices to new patients, yet thousands of young people yearning for a career in health care find it difficult to get into medical school.

The University of Virginia School of Medicine receives 4,000 applications yearly for 142 slots in each class, Dr. Arthur Garson, the school's dean, told The Associated Press.

Similarly, the Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine in Blacksburg received about 2,300 applications this term. College president James Wolfe said 1,000 or more appeared capable of completing the program. But there was room to enroll only 159.

"Getting good students will not be a problem" for the new school, Wolfe said.

Wolfe said he hasn't been contacted by either Tech or Carilion about their opening a medical school in Roanoke just 40 miles from his. Still, he appeared unconcerned about possible competition: "We don't have any problem with it."