Gov. Dave Freudenthal offered this statement Friday upon calls for a study of establishing a medical school in Wyoming:

October 6, 2006

"I personally don't support the expenditure of huge amounts of state resources to build a medical school, although that's not what my opponent is actually proposing. His proposal seems to be for nothing more than more government and more studies. Being a candidate carries with it more responsibility than that, the responsibility to do the work, figure out what the state is already doing and put forth real ideas."

"Over the years, the shortage of health care professionals has been the focus for a great deal of collaboration between the Governor's Office, the Legislature and private organizations. And now, the Wyoming Healthcare Commission, with members representing business, hospitals, consumers and others, is in the middle of a study to quantify Wyoming's health professional training needs. We can expect to see the results from that study sometime next spring. The Commission is also well along the way to developing a complete tracking system for health care providers, which will help tell us not only where the shortage areas are, but can help predict gaps and trends for nearly all medical professions in the coming years."

"Our partnership with the University of Wyoming and the Legislature in initiating the WWAMI program is showing great results. Already we've seen a return rate of about 78 percent, when the original predictions aimed for a much lower figure. The University of Washington medical school is consistently ranked among the highest in the nation."