AUGUSTA — A shortage of primary care doctors in rural Maine is driving an effort to consider whether the state should have its own public medical school.

With many physicians approaching retirement age and not enough young doctors in the pipeline, the issue is projected to get worse by 2035, said Dr. James Jarvis, director of clinical education at Northern Light Eastern Maine Medical Center.

“The prospect of not having an influx of newer physicians to take over for those physicians who will be retiring in that same timeframe is a little bit concerning for us,” he said.

In the next 10 years, 45-50% of physicians in Maine will be near retirement age, he said. And while primary care is a key area, there also aren’t enough general surgeons, doctors who specialize in maternal care or neurologists.

“Many patients are waiting a year or more for an appointment to see a neurologist and a lot of that is to do with the fact that we just don’t have enough,” Jarvis said.

To address the problem, Sen. Joe Baldacci (D-Bangor) is sponsoring legislation to direct the University of Maine to establish a medical center somewhere in Penobscot County. To help pay for it, he’s proposing a $1 per pack increase in the cigarette tax effective July 1, 2026.

“We need to increase the number of MD’s in rural Maine and provide some better rural health care access,” Baldacci said. “Part of the bill is for the medical school to provide mobile health outreach.”

That outreach will cover northern Maine, including Aroostook, Washington, Somerset, Piscataquis and Penobscot counties, he said.

Work to examine the idea is already underway, with a study due in November.

In August, the University of Maine hired Pennsylvania-based consulting firm Tripp Umbach to conduct a feasibility study. The firm has conducted dozens of medical school studies, including in rural states like Idaho and Montana, according to the university.

University of Maine President Joan Ferrini Mundy said the idea has been around years and the study will give detailed guidance about what it would take to bring a new medical school to Maine.

“We really are in the middle of it, waiting for this report, then there will be a whole set of steps that will follow as we try to assess the report, look at budget related implications, look at what they learned and what they tell us,” she said.

Ferrini Mundy said the university system already offers a nursing program at multiple locations and that the flagship campus in Orono is a research institution.

“We already see ourselves as a pretty critical partner in the domain of the state of health care,” she said. “It’s well aligned, the general topic of healthcare, with who we are as a system.”

As it is now, Maine has an osteopathic medical school at the University of New England, but not an allopathic medical school.

Osteopath training emphasizes a more holistic and sometimes hands-on approach to medicine, while graduates of allopathic schools focus on treating specific conditions with pharmaceutical medicine and surgery. Roughly nine out of ten American doctors are graduates of allopathic schools.

Jarvis said most physicians settle within 100 miles of where they receive their training, which is another reason why it would be beneficial to bring them to Maine for medical school.

He said there are economic benefits too.

“Medical schools have been shown to improve the local economy,” he said. “Besides bringing physicians and the support staff that are needed to render health care to the population, they usually advance research opportunities and bring some other high skilled individuals to the area.”

A key question moving forward will be funding. Baldacci’s bill to increase the cigarette tax by $1 per pack will generate about $25 million a year.

But earlier this month, Gov. Janet Mills also proposed a $1 per pack increase in the cigarette tax, along with increases in other tobacco taxes, to help balance the state budget.

Regardless, Baldacci said if a new medical school comes to Maine, it will need both private and public sector funding.

Jarvis said that often happens when wealthy benefactors with a connection to the state step up.

Baldacci said the bill is one of his top priorities this legislative session.

“I think it would be a huge boon to eastern and northern Maine,” Baldacci said. “Particularly for rural and small towns of eastern and northern Maine.”

Editors’ Note: A previous version of this story did not do enough to clarify that graduates of osteopath medical schools are medical doctors and that this proposal is for a new medical school in Maine, which would be the first public medical school and the first allopathic medical school, but not the first medical school. We have clarified our language around these points. (2/6/2025)