Med school dean foresees huge health center in LV

Friday, Jan. 21, 2000 | 11:34 a.m.

The new head man at the University of Nevada School of Medicine is thinking about the future, and the opportunities a sprawling health sciences center could bring to Las Vegas and the state.

Dr. Robert Miller took over as dean at the medical school, that has Reno and Las Vegas campuses, in November, and he is looking at the University of Texas' Houston medical school as a model for what he wants to build here.

"I was at the Texas Medical Center in Houston for 10 years, and it's a world-class model," Miller told the Sun editorial board Thursday. "Can we realistically build something like that here? I don't know, but we have to start somewhere."

The health science center in Houston includes public and private hospitals, schools of medicine, dentistry and nursing. It was founded in 1972 and serves a student body of about 3,100. The center conducts medical research valued at $98 million per year, and provides health care for about 1.5 million outpatient visits and inpatient admissions per year.

"I think that maybe the time is right for something like this in Las Vegas," Miller said. "When I look at Las Vegas I see where Houston was in the '50s and '60s, experiencing rapid growth with available capital. Houston had oil money and Las Vegas has gambling money.

"I see Las Vegas as a city looking for legitimacy, and like an opera or a ballet, a health center is one of those things that can give that legitimacy."

One of the proposed sites for beginning the center is on 10 acres of land the school owns on Tenaya Way in northwest Las Vegas Valley.

"Wherever it is built, it will have to be someplace where there is room to grow, because we don't want to be landlocked," Miller said.

The project is still very much in the early developmental stages, but Miller is confident that it could become a reality.

"It will take a team effort from the hospitals, the city, philanthropists and the universities, and it will take all those people getting together and figuring out how we can do this," Miller said.