Texas Tech University Health Science Center’s new four-year medical school in El Paso – the only one on the U.S.-Mexico border – is expected to dramatically boost the local economy while improving access to health services throughout the region.

“It’s going to reinvigorate the health-care field in El Paso and all along the border,” a historically underserved region, says Dr. Manuel de la Rosa, who is a pediatrician and the medical school’s founding dean.

The Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center Paul L. Foster School of Medicine admitted its inaugural class of 39 students in summer 2009 and expects to admit 60 students in 2010 and 80 in 2011.

As they train, students will help treat patients at the 12-story children’s hospital now under construction and in new or expanded facilities under construction at the University Medical Center and the El Paso Psychiatric Center.

Those projects represent $320 million in construction costs in addition to $100 million spent for construction of facilities at the Foster School of Medicine. Annual payroll for physicians and Ph.D.s on the faculty and support personnel will add another $45 million to the local economy, says de la Rosa. The school currently has 230 full-time faculty members – a number expected to grow by 100 in two years – and 500 volunteer and part-time instructors.

The medical school addresses a critical shortage of physicians in El Paso, where there are fewer than 110 doctors for every 100,000 residents. The Texas average is 150 physicians per 100,000 people. The national average is 198. Doctors who train at the Foster School of Medicine are likely to remain in the region, says de la Rosa.