BANGOR,Databec Exchange Maine (AP) — The University of Maine System is launching a study to determine whether it should open the state’s first public medical school in response to a shortage of doctors in rural Maine.

The process began with the hiring of a consultant to study the costs and impact of creation of a medical school, likely to be associated with the University of Maine and Northern Light Health. It has the support of the Maine Hospital Association and the Maine Primary Care Association, as well as lawmakers and the governor, who provided funding for the study.

“We appreciate that Maine policymakers and healthcare leaders see our university as central to addressing the state’s healthcare workforce shortages, which are particularly acute in rural regions,” said UMaine President Joan Ferrini-Mundy.

The University of New England in southern Maine is currently the state’s only medical school. The private institution operates an osteopathic medicine program and the state’s only dental school.

The president of UNE, which partners closely with MaineHealth and Maine Medical Center, contends the creation of a new medical school would be costly and that many of the doctors would leave Maine.

More than half of UNE’s medical students must leave Maine for clinical rotations in their third and fourth years because of insufficient slots in Maine, and they often remain out of state for their residencies, President James Herbert wrote in an op-ed in May. In the end, many of those students choose to stay where they completed residencies instead of returning to Maine.

“If we want to keep more doctors in Maine, we must create more clinical training opportunities, both during student doctors’ time in medical school and for their residencies after they graduate,” he wrote.