Although the University of Maine System is well positioned to start the state’s first public medical school, a projected $250 million in startup costs and tens of millions in sustained operating support mean the project is not financially feasible, according to an independent study.
The scale of investment combined with limited medical residency capacity and the financial constraints facing Maine’s health care systems, makes such an undertaking “not prudent at this time,” according to Tripp Umbach, a Kansas City, Mo., medical education consultant commissioned by the University of Maine System in 2024 to conduct the study, which was submitted to the state Legislature on Jan. 5.
The study doesn’t change the fact that Maine needs more doctors, Dannel Malloy, UMS’s chancellor, and Joan Ferrini-Mundy, UMaine’s president, said in a joint statement.
“While concluding that there is currently a lack of necessary financial resources, this independent study confirms the state needs a public medical school and that our world-class flagship university has the outstanding academic programs and research that will be foundational if and when Maine is ready to make that investment in the future,” Malloy and Ferrini-Mundy said.
For now, Maine’s lone med school is at the University of New England, a private university that has a medical campus in Portland. UNE’s College of Osteopathic Medicine, founded in 1978, moved from Biddeford to Portland in 2025.
‘Critical shortage’
The UMaine System/Tripp Umbach study, responding to a critical shortage of physicians in rural Maine, looked at the feasibility of establishing a public medical school in Penobscot County.
Maine’s urgent physician workforce challenges, particularly in primary care and in rural communities, are a result of the state having the oldest population in the nation, an aging physician workforce and limited medical residency and clinical training capacity, the report said.
Tripp Umbach found that with no public medical school, Maine produces one-third the national average rate of M.D. school applicants by state and most graduates from the two private medical education programs in the state ultimately leave Maine to practice.
As a research university and the flagship of Maine’s leading producer of health care professionals — the University of Maine System — UMaine was identified as being best suited to lead the future development of a public medical school.
UMS is already authorized by statute to operate a college of medicine and confer the degree of doctor of medicine, although establishing a program would require approval by the system’s board of trustees.
A survey administered by Tripp Umbach found that health care, community leaders and other stakeholders agreed that Maine needs a public medical school and that it should be part of UMS. The majority agreed it would address physician workforce shortages and improve health outcomes in underserved areas.
Next steps
With the price tag as the sticking point, the study said the state and UMS could consider steps to lay the foundation for a future UMaine medical school.
Recommendations included:
- Investing in research, nursing and allied health programs across UMS
- Strengthening undergraduate and graduate medical education pipelines and partnerships between current programs and UMaine
- Expanding residency and clinical training capacity, particularly in rural areas
- Building the system’s physical infrastructure, including a proposed health sciences complex in Orono for which $45 million in federal funding requested by U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, is pending.
According to the report, 68% of students who complete medical school and residencies in the same state stay to practice. A “significant” portion of UMaine’s research is in health and medicine and UMaine has research funding and output comparable to those of other new public medical schools, the report says.
Tripp Umbach recommended that the state and UMS reassess the feasibility of a public medical school within three years and, in the meantime, work with existing medical schools and hospitals to expand undergraduate medical education and graduate medical education.
In 2024 to 2025, Maine’s public universities produced 870 health care graduates. UMaine and the University of Southern Maine brought millions of dollars in related research investment to the state. The University of Southern Maine is home to the Catherine Cutler Institute, which houses multiple health research institutes. UMaine anchors a graduate school of biomedical science and engineering, a multi-institutional education and research consortium that includes Jackson Laboratory, MaineHealth Institute of Research, MDI Biological Laboratory and the University of New England. In 2018, UMaine launched an institute of medicine to coordinate activities and partnerships in health and life science education and research.