The University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix opened its four-year medical education program in 2007. In 1992, though, downtown Phoenix was being utilized as a regional campus for the U of A College of Medicine – Tucson, which was founded in 1967. The original program offered third- and fourth-year medical students the opportunity to complete their training at Phoenix-area hospitals.
And as early as 1983, Phoenix-area medical students at the U of A College of Medicine were taking required clerkships in internal medicine, pediatrics, neurology, obstetrics and gynecology and family practice, as well as clinical electives.
In August 2004, the Arizona Board of Regents approved an agreement to expand the Phoenix program to a four-year program. An unprecedented statewide collaboration of the Arizona Board of Regents, the City of Phoenix, the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) and Phoenix-area teaching hospitals, guided by a governor-appointed commission, led to the establishment of the Phoenix Bioscience Core (PBC) campus downtown.
The property, donated by the City of Phoenix, was then the site of TGen and historic buildings that once housed Phoenix Union High School. Following extensive renovations, the buildings became home to the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix, which admitted its first class of medical students in July 2007.
In the ensuing years, the PBC grew quickly. Part of that growth was the Arizona Biomedical Collaborative, a joint research facility with Arizona State University and expansions to the U of A colleges of Management, Pharmacy and Public Health. The Arizona Legislature allocated funds for the expansion of the biomedical campus in Phoenix, allowing for the construction of the Health Sciences Education Building, which opened in 2012, as well as the Biomedical Sciences Partnership Building in 2017.
Since its inception, the college has also worked diligently to expand its clinical departments, research footprint and overall impact to the future health of all Arizonans.
This includes the expansion of the MD class sizes to 130 students — which began with the Class of 2028 — as well as to the college's Graduate Medical Education programs; the recently announced College of Medicine – Phoenix, Yuma Branch in collaboration with Onvida Health, where 15 students per year will be part of the three-year Primary Care Accelerated Pathway to an MD degree; and newly established research centers of excellence — such as the Translational Cardiovascular Research Center, the Phoenix Children's Research Institute and the Phoenix VA Health Care System Research Space.
These additions have helped the college continue to address the critical need for physicians in Arizona. Looking toward the future, the campus continues to grow.