Va. Tech Carilion med school plans new building, doubled enrollment

In 2010, the first class of students arrived at Roanoke’s new medical school, a partnership between Virginia Tech and Carilion Clinic. And nearly 15 years later, the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine is undertaking ambitious growth plans.

The medical school is in the early stages of planning a new 100,000-square-foot facility that would allow the school to double its enrollment to around 400.

The building, which could open as soon as 2028, will be located at the corner of South Jefferson Street and Old Woods Avenue, across Jefferson from the current 150,000-square-foot facility VTCSOM shares with the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC, according to Dr. Lee Learman, the medical school’s dean. The new facility would also allow the biomedical research institute to expand within the current building.

Virginia Tech absorbed the medical school, which had previously operated as an independent institution, as a college in 2018. Learman joined VTCSOM the following year. “We took a really serious look back then about why to grow, about how to grow,” Learman says.

The school’s capacity is 49 medical students per class, but demand is much higher; the school receives about 6,900 qualified applications per year, according
to Virginia Tech.

Virginia’s 2023 budget dedicated $9 million for the project’s planning phase, funds spearheaded by Del. Jason Ballard, R-Giles County. The request estimates the total cost at $183.7 million, but Learman cautions that it’s a ballpark number. Virginia Tech will seek funding from the General Assembly for most of the money in the 2026 budget cycle. The school has selected Charlottesville’s VMDO Architects and Pennsylvania’s Ballinger for the initial design work.

Learman says the expansion will help Virginia solve a growing shortage of physicians — Virginia is short nearly 4,000 doctors, according to a March 2024 report from The Cicero Institute — by keeping Virginia natives here for medical school and beyond.

Carilion initially partnered in VTCSOM with a goal that the newly trained doctors would remain with the system, says Carilion Chief Physician Executive Dr. Tony Seupaul, “and we’re seeing that pay off in spades.”

He adds, “It’s wonderful to see because it means that not only are we doing things right, but we’ve fostered an environment … that people want to come back to.”