After you finish reading the article. You will see that Aaron Pena is again no where to be found.
EDINBURG, Feburary 6 - State Sen. Eddie Lucio says he plans to continue his push for a four-year medical school for the Rio Grande Valley when he speaks to the UT System board of regents in Edinburg on Thursday.
The Board is meeting Wednesday and Thursday at the University of Texas-Pan American.
Lucio, D-Brownsville. said he was concerned when he read newspaper reports that supporters of a medical school in Round Rock, Texas, were courting the UT System and Texas A&M System.
“With all due respect to other parts of the state, the Valley has to be the next place to get a four-year medical school, or what I term a 'health sciences center',” Lucio told the Guardian.
Currently, there are eight medical schools in Texas, with the southernmost in San Antonio. Combined, the medical schools are not producing enough physicians to handle the state’s health care needs. Texas has a below average doctor-per-capita ratio of 152 per 100,000. This compares to 220 per 100,000 in the rest of the country.
Lucio said the right infrastructure could be put in place if everyone in the Valley made a health sciences center the number one goal. That means support from city and county governments, legislators, private hospitals, and the University of Texas Health Sciences Center at San Antonio (UTHSCSA), which administers the RAHC facilities in Harlingen and Edinburg.
State Rep. Armando “Mando” Martinez, D-Weslaco, said he backed Lucio’s call for a medical school 100 percent. Martinez said the Valley delegation should meet in the interim and agree to make the legislation its number one goal for the next session.
“I think a health sciences center is a necessity. Our people deserve it,” Martinez said. “We have a rampant rate of diabetes, cancer. There's so many things down here; so many ailments.”
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