Washington Governor Jay Inslee today [Friday] celebrated an expansion of WSU’s medical school during a ceremony on the university’s downtown Spokane campus.
The legislature this year approved funding to allow the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine to increase its annual class from 60 to 80.
Democratic Representative Marcus Riccelli says neither the state House or the Senate had included money for the expansion in their initial budgets.
Inslee credited Riccelli and his Third District colleagues Andy Billig and Timm Ormsby for their persistence in getting the funding inserted in the bill that was finally approved.
“Not only did they create a working vision for how to make this happen, they had the guts to vote to actually appropriate the money and raise the money to do it. And they had the spine to go out to the state of Washington and tell folks this was an investment worth making," Inslee said.
WSU’s College of Medicine will welcome its third class this fall. All of its students live in or were raised in the Evergreen State.