PAINTSVILLE — Midway College's decision to start a pharmacy school 130 miles from its main campus gives Paintsville something other rural Appalachian communities have used as a serious economic driver.

It's something Paintsville had a chance at 16 years ago, when a local attorney proposed and started raising money to establish an independent osteopathic medical school in the city. That proposal ended up merged with Pikeville College's medical school, which opened in 1997.

"I guess you could say that there were some non-believers about the Pikeville osteopathic school that later became some strong believers," said Paintsville lawyer G. Chad Perry.

With the pharmacy school plans, "we haven't encountered any non-believers," said Perry whose family has donated $1 million for the school.

Perry's wife, Julianne, is a trustee at Midway College, and the couple has long believed in the importance of investing in education for Eastern Kentucky students, particularly in Johnson County, where the two school systems are traditionally high academic performers. They have no children.

"The students will be our children, I suppose," Chad Perry said.

There are more believers now because similar professional schools have opened in other cities, such as Grundy, Va., across the state line from Pike County; at Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tenn.; East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, and Belmont University in Nashville.

Some of those schools are independent; others are affiliated with established colleges, but the people investing in them want to see professional education and economic development in central Appalachian communities.

When the Pikeville College School of Osteopathic Medicine was proposed as an independent medical school in the early 1990s, Paintsville hospital and local officials were leery of the proposal as a private, independent institution.

Some said it would lose money or that the school's goal of training doctors who would stay in Eastern Kentucky wouldn't pan out.

Since opening, the school has graduated about 550 students. As of last May, about 125 licensed doctors in Kentucky were Pikeville medical school graduates, and about 70 of those were in small Eastern Kentucky towns, according to the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure.

About $1.5 million a year is earmarked in the state budget to give Pikeville students scholarships that cover the tuition difference at Pike ville versus the universities of Kentucky and Louisville. Students "pay back" the tuition by promising to work in Kentucky one year for each year they receive the money.

"We're keeping the promise we made when we opened the school, and that is to produce rural and primary care physicians for rural Kentucky and Appalachia," said Dr. Boyd Buser, dean of the medical school.

He said outside data has shown about 30 percent of the osteopathic school's graduates end up working within 90 miles of Pikeville.

Catching the wave

The Paintsville pharmacy school, scheduled to open its branch on the Big Sandy Community and Technical College campus in fall 2011, won't be the only one in the area. Buchanan County, Va., just southeast of Pike County, about 80 miles from Paintsville, has hung its economic development hopes on two independent non-profit professional schools. The first is the Appalachian School of Law, which opened in 1995. The second is the Appalachian College of Pharmacy, which graduated its first three-year class last fall.

"We got in just in time to catch the wave and get established," said Appalachian College of Pharmacy board member Frank Kilgore, a Buchanan County lawyer who helped found the law school.

Buchanan County put up "the bulk of the money" to establish the pharmacy school, which also accepted grants from the Appalachian Regional Commission, the governor's office, U.S. Senate earmarks and private donors. The school was built in an old unused high school building donated by the county.

The idea behind establishing the professional schools was to meet an educational need and to attract high-paying jobs to supplement or replace a coalfield economy, officials in Grundy say.

"This was seen as an alternative to a call center," said Wes Shinn, law school dean.

He said that once the law school was established, its relatively high-paid faculty, who were required to live in Buchanan County, pumped back into the economy up to $30 million a year in taxes and business development surrounding the school.

Kilgore said, however, that there can be pitfalls. The college of pharmacy, which is expecting to become fully accredited this month, is struggling to place students in clinical training positions because of a flooded market. In the past, a doctorate in pharmacy was not required for pharmacists, but now it is in many states. For-profit and non-profit colleges alike have seen dollar signs in establishing new professional schools.

"The more schools you have, the more clinical rotations you have," Kilgore said.

A social need

Midway College officials say their research shows there is still a shortage of pharmacists.

"This school was not started to be an economic driver. It was started to serve a pressing social need," said Midway President William Drake.

Local hospitals have trouble filling pharmacist positions, said Dr. Anthony Stumbo, medical director of Prestonsburg's Highlands Regional Medical Center.

He said he relies on pharmacists to meet with patients, and they make rounds with doctors at Highlands. The profession involves patient care, not just putting pills in bottles.

"The practice of pharmacy has been changing and continues to change," said the newly hired dean of Midway's pharmacy school, Dr. Lanny Foss. "The focus has been having the pharmacist be a health care provider that works directly with patients. Pharmacy is uniquely prepared to do that with patients."

Foss was a professor and interim dean shortly after the Appalachian College of Pharmacy opened in 2006.

On one hand, there is a shortage of pharmacists, but on the other hand, some pharmacy companies have moved toward cost-cutting and using several technicians — a job that in Kentucky has no educational requirements — supervised by one pharmacist.

Personal contact with patients is, of course, limited, said Paintsville pharmacist Dan Salyer. He has run Big Sandy Pharmacy, also known as Fred's Pharmacy, on Main Street for 44 years.

He said he thought the pharmacy school will be "a fantastic draw" for the community.

"It's hard to foresee what six years will bring" to the profession, he said. That's the amount of time before the first scheduled class of Midway pharmacists will be graduating.

During those six years, local officials have pledged to do all they can to help Midway establish the school.

Paintsville officials might consider a bond issue and tapping city economic development funds, Mayor Bob Porter said. He hopes Midway will choose a site within the city limits, but even if it doesn't he expects the city to benefit from housing demand and new jobs. He said Paintsville and Johnson County school systems have high academic standards, and he hopes local students will benefit from the pharmacy school.

"Students in Eastern Kentucky have historically had to travel quite a distance if they go beyond the junior college level," Porter said.

The county government is seeking at least $200,000 in state coal severance tax money, and about $400,000 in local economic development money might be available now, said Johnson County Judge-Executive Tucker Daniel. He said he envisions using the public funds to help Midway with site acquisition and infrastructure surrounding the school. Midway expects to raise $20 million for the start-up costs and has estimated the school will have a $30 million annual impact on the local economy.

"We're starting to understand now what kind of impact this can have for us," Daniel said.