RECOMMENDATION: OPEN BOTH UNLV MED BUILDINGS IN 2022

would expand and revise the first phase to include classroom space, while engaging donors to get moving on the second phase.

“We want the top, most innovative medical education facility in Las Vegas, not one that is below where the other ones are,” Umbach told an audience of about 50 people. “We’re already a fifth of the way through the 21st century. When this is built, we’ll be a quarter of the way through, and we don’t want to be saddled with facilities that aren’t at the nth degree of where we want to go.”

The medical school currently has facilities for 60-member classes in its facilities at the UMC complex, but long-range plans call for it to expand to at least 120 members per class to help address a shortage of physicians in Southern Nevada.

Citing information from other medical schools nationwide, Umbach said advancements in technology were reducing the need for large libraries, with information now being available anywhere via computers and smart devices. That being the case, he said, several schools were considering reducing the size of their library spaces and repurposing those areas to support classrooms and labs incorporating the latest technology.

Umbach said that although it would be worthwhile for UNLV to create the sciences library building, waiting to get started on the education building could cause the university to fall far behind other schools on the technology curve. Another concern is that the school’s accreditation would be placed at risk if the shared library facilities were used more by students from other schools than from the med school.

Under Umbach’s recommendation, the goal would be to open both buildings in 2022.

Otherwise, Umbach said, “you run the risk of being in a situation where you’re behind the eight ball for a long, long time and will probably never catch up with the kind of medical education program that’s needed in Las Vegas.”

Umbach is founder and president of Tripp Umbach, which has provided consulting for more than 30 new medical schools since 2002.

Elsewhere in the presentation, Lincy’s executive director offered a personal story showing the need for the school.

Robert Lang suffered a virus that moved into his heart this year, weakening it to the point where he found himself fighting for his life at UCLA’S medical school. There, he was treated with a machine that removed his blood, oxygenated it and pumped it back into his body — essentially doing the work that his heart and lungs were incapable of doing.

That machine is available in all but two of the nation’s 30 largest cities, Lang said. One is Las Vegas, where the nearest machine is 232 miles away. But in the other, Charlotte, N.C., there are five machines within less than 140 miles.

Lang, a strong advocate for development of the UNLV medical school not only as Lincy’s director but as the head of Brookings Mountain West, also gave a history of the school showing that it had faced strong opposition by influential state lawmakers, regents and NSHE officials since its inception. Amid northsouth political partisanship, he said, Northern Nevada interests saw the school as a threat to UNR’S medical school.

Lang’s conclusion: Poor university oversight has put Las Vegas at risk — as evidenced by his experience at UCLA as one example.