With it will come:

• new jobs
• hundreds of millions of dollars into the region’s economy in the first year alone
• opportunities in emerging technologies in bioscience and medicine
• enhanced medical care throughout the region
• top-level medical leaders and medical students from around the country
• an answer to the projected state-wide shortage of 4,400 doctors by 2020
• an answer to the drain of medical students leaving Michigan

Under the leadership of Founding Dean Robert Folberg, M.D., instruction and research in the basic sciences will be provided on Oakland University’s campus in Rochester, with clinical instruction and advanced research provided at Beaumont. The school will train physicians to practice 21st century medicine with an emphasis on lifelong learning, technology, research, preventive and pre-symptom medicine, treatment and management of chronic disease, and teamwork. Its vision is described as “a partnership to lead innovation in patient-centered medical education and research.”

Beaumont Hospitals will be the school's exclusive clinical partner, responsible for providing clinical training to an estimated 125 OUWBSM students by the fourth year of operation. An OUWBSM advisory committee composed of Beaumont and OU executives will provide guidance on the direction of the school.

Building on a solid foundation of the nearly $25 million in gifts accrued as of July 31, 2008, revenue for the OUWBSM will come from tuition and fees, commercialization of intellectual property, partner contributions, extramural research and philanthropy. 

Oakland University is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association (NCA). The NCA will visit OU in the spring of 2009 to review plans for the new medical school to ensure that it meets the standards and quality expected for NCA approval. In the United States, the accreditation status of programs leading to the M.D. degree is determined solely by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME).