Groundbreaking engineering-based college of medicine to be created at U. Illinois

3/23/2015 Walbert Castillo, USA TODAY

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will be establishing the nation’s first college of medicine, which will have an integration in both engineering and medicine. This will be the first time in history where a university and hospital, Carle Health System, have partnered together to provide first-class education to its prospective medical students.

Written by Walbert Castillo, USA TODAY

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will be establishing the nation’s first college of medicine, which will have an integration in both engineering and medicine. This will be the first time in history where a university and hospital, Carle Health System, have partnered together to provide first-class education to its prospective medical students.

The engineering program at the U. of Illinois was ranked No. 4 worldwide in 2014, according to the Academic Ranking of World Universities in Engineering/Technology and Computer Sciences. In addition, Carle Health System was ranked No. 14, according to a ranking done by U.S. News.

“This ground-breaking approach will integrate the university’s unparalleled assets in engineering, technology and supercomputer with Carle’s nationally recognized, comprehensive health care system,” according to a U. of Illinois press release.

The U. of Illinois Board of Trustees voted unanimously on March 12 to start the development of the first new college created at the U. of Illinois campus for almost 60 years.

Normand Paquin, associate director for research at the U. of Illinois Coordinated Science Lab., says students in the college will be able to earn M.D.-M.S. degrees and M.D.-Ph.D. degrees, based on the COM business plan.

From this college, Paquin says he hopes to see a new type of physician in the medical field — physician scientists, physician engineers and physician entrepreneurs.

“Physicians are going to have a comfort level of looking at the human body as a system that can be improved in a way that hasn’t been done before,” says Paquin ...

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This story was published March 23, 2015.