Bassett is exploring options to be accredited as an "affiliated" medical school and bring students in for their third and fourth years of medical school. This program would help train physicians who may be more willing to serve in a rural setting.

"There is an emerging need for physicians anticipated in the next 30 years," said Dr. William F. Streck, president and chief executive officer of Bassett Healthcare.

Streck said this would start a three-year period of "exploration" for Bassett’s options. There’s no definite guarantee that Bassett will offer such a program.

"At the end of three years, we’ll be able to make a decision," Streck said Tuesday.

Bassett has hired Laura Schweitzer, a former vice president for academic affairs at Upstate Medical University and former vice provost and health liaison at Syracuse University. Schweitzer started at the beginning of the month and is Bassett’s first chief academic officer.

Schweitzer said it would take at least three years for Bassett to go through the program and receive accreditation. The first group of students would then be admitted into medical schools, entering Bassett two years after that.

They would receive diplomas from their medical school and not from Bassett. Streck said there wasn’t a figure yet as to how much such a program would cost Bassett.

"I don’t think the cost will be prohibitive," Streck said.

Schweitzer has also worked at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. She said a program like Bassett is proposing would give students the chance to see that practicing medicine is possible in a rural area _ and that they might even like it.

"The students will come to Bassett and will experience the gamut (of medicine)," Schweitzer said Monday.

Students who learn medicine in a rural area are generally more willing to practice in such an area, Schweitzer said.

Bassett has programs with Columbia University, Albany Medical College, the University of Rochester and the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine. Students from those programs generally come to Bassett for about six weeks to do a rotation at the hospital and affiliated clinics.

Those students are in their third year of medical school. Bassett also offers residency placements.

"They come (to Bassett) and they love it," Schweitzer said.

Streck said Bassett has had a commitment to teaching since the 1920s.

"Bassett would be very different if it were not a teaching institution," Streck said.

The community shouldn’t notice much of a difference when these students do come to Bassett, Schweitzer said. There would only be about 30 students, she said, and they would likely rent properties in the area or live with family members.

Schweitzer said Binghamton University has a similar program and students attending that program tend to be from the area or live at home with their parents.

This program would end up benefiting Cooperstown and the surrounding communities, Schweitzer said, because it would create more physicians who might be willing to work in a rural area.

"It’s a good population to have," said Bassett spokeswoman Karen Huxtable.

Schweitzer agreed.

She added, "Having them around is quite wonderful."

Streck and Schweitzer said the project has been spearheaded by Dr. Henry Weil, co-chairman of the medical school initiative. Streck said Schweitzer, however, will be leading Bassett through the process.

Weil described Bassett as a "very special" place where students can learn.

"It’s a wonderful environment," he said.

Weil said having such a program would entice other physicians to come to Bassett so they could teach others.

"We believe there is a kind of doctor that would emerge from such an experience at Bassett," Weil said Tuesday.

Bassett can teach these students part of the organization’s model.

"We are really interested in having them do that teamwork well," Weil said. "Very few medical schools teach their medical students how to do that. We think we can teach people that."