Annual Pub 2023 FINAL - Flipbook - Page 8
onstruction was well underway on what would become the Kirk Kerkorian Medical
Education Building (MEB) as former U.S. Congressman James Bilbray, who
represented Nevada’s 1st congressional district from 1987 to 1995, stood inside
his Las Vegas home and recalled that during his time as a Nevada System of Higher
Education (NSHE) regent in the 1960s there were sometimes acrimonious – “it got
hot= – debates among public o٠恩cials who argued over whether the state9s medical
school should be located in Reno or Las Vegas.
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“Even then I saw the way Southern Nevada was growing (it was nearly double Reno’s metro population
in 1969) meant a med school should be located in Las Vegas,” said Bilbray, who died at age 83 in
2021, a year before the October grand opening of MEB, the 昀rst permanent structure on the Kirk
Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV campus.
P H O T O : J O S H H A W K I N S / U N LV
K I R K K E R K O R I A N S C H O O L O F M E D I C I N E AT U N LV
Bilbray said he stayed in touch with state o٠恩cials who, like him, found it di٠恩cult to stomach the fact
Las Vegas was the only metroplex of more than 2 million people in America that didn’t have a four-year
public allopathic medical school, which not only trains physicians but also raises the quality of care
through research and continuing education. He said he thought the votes for locating a school in Las
Vegas were there nearly 60 years ago, but “hardball politics,” the promise of a sizable donation from
a foundation “at the last minute,” turned the tide in favor of a school in Reno, which opened in 1969.
Reno – its medical school ran a clinical operation training its doctors in Southern Nevada for many
years – now has a metro population of 520,000.
