“The First Presidency is pleased to announce the decision now to create a medical school at BYU,” the church statement said. “A major focus will be on international health issues affecting members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the church’s worldwide humanitarian efforts.
The announcement did not say where the school would be located, when it might open or how large its first class will be. Church leaders did say the BYU medical school would be focused on teaching, that it would draw students from around the world and that research would emphasize areas of strategic importance to the global church.
BYU President Shane Reese, charged by church leaders at his inauguration last year with maintaining and elevating BYU’s core mission as an undergraduate teaching institution, said the university is creating a planning team to work on creating the medical school and would share more information as plans develop, according to an email he sent to the campus community.
The medical school will not be a hospital, according to the church statement. Instead, it will seek to partner with the state’s other medical school at the University of Utah and with the state’s largest hospital system.