Quietly, on the west side of town, Provo is getting something only a handful of American cities ever get: a brand-new medical school. It will reshape the old Provo High School site, deepen the city's ties to Utah Valley Hospital, and — if the timeline holds — put the first class of future doctors in seats in the fall of 2027.
Because most of the process happens behind the closed doors of accreditation, it's been easy to lose the plot since the 2024 announcement. So here it is, start to finish: what's been decided, what's pending, and why this is one of the biggest long-term stories in the valley.
The announcement, and the why
In July 2024, the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — which owns and operates BYU — announced the university would create a School of Medicine. The stated focus set it apart from a typical new medical school from day one: a major emphasis on international health issues affecting church members and on the church's worldwide humanitarian efforts, alongside teaching and research in areas of strategic importance to the church.
Two structural decisions were made at the outset. First, the school will grant MD degrees, making it Utah's second MD program alongside the University of Utah (the state's other two medical schools — Noorda College of Osteopathic Medicine, also in Provo, and a Rocky Vista University campus in southern Utah — grant DO degrees). Second, BYU will not build its own hospital. Students will train through clinical affiliations instead — more on that below.
The dean and the team
In October 2024, BYU named Dr. Mark J. Ott the school's inaugural dean; he started that November. Ott is an accomplished surgeon who spent most of his career with Intermountain Health, with academic and affiliate appointments across Johns Hopkins, Harvard Medical School, Stanford, and the University of Utah — a résumé that conveniently spans both of the school's likely clinical worlds.
Faculty hiring is well underway, and it has produced at least one hire that med-school hopefuls will recognize: Dr. David Morton, the anatomist behind the popular "Noted Anatomist" YouTube channel, has announced he's joining BYU's new school as a department head.
Where accreditation stands (the part that decides everything)
Every MD program in the United States is accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), and a new school can't recruit a single student until the LCME says so. Here's BYU's path so far:
- July 31, 2025 — BYU submitted its application: a data control instrument of roughly 900 pages, assembled by a team of nearly 200 people in under seven months to hit the deadline that kept a 2027 opening possible.
- Fall 2025 — The LCME reviewed the application and granted BYU candidate status, the formal step toward preliminary accreditation.
- June 2026 — The LCME conducted its survey visit to Provo. The visit was closed to the public and press — though Governor Spencer Cox visited campus the same week and posted about meeting with the school's leaders.
- Next: the decision. If the LCME grants preliminary accreditation — a decision that could come as soon as the committee's October 2026 meeting — BYU can immediately begin recruiting and admitting students.
Two more accreditation facts frame the whole timeline. A new school's founding class is capped at 60 students — the LCME maximum — and full accreditation can't be granted until that first class graduates, which at the earliest means 2031. In other words: even in the best case, this is a story Provo will be living with, milestone by milestone, into the 2030s.
The building: West Campus and the old Provo High
The school's physical home answers a question Provo has been asking for a decade: what becomes of the old Provo High School site? BYU bought the property in 2016 and renamed it West Campus, and in May 2025 announced the medical school would be built there — a new facility, with demolition work on the south end of the old high school beginning that year.
The location is the strategy. West Campus sits near Intermountain Health's Utah Valley Hospital, the largest hospital in the county — which is precisely the point for a school that won't own a hospital of its own. Intermountain and BYU have discussed a clinical relationship since the announcement, and the University of Utah — home of the state's flagship medical school — publicly welcomed the new program, saying it plans to "actively pursue collaboration opportunities" in medical education and clinical care and framing BYU's internationally focused plans as complementary to the U.'s state-focused mission.
What it means for Provo
A medical school is a slow-motion economic event, and the effects will show up in layers:
The west side changes first. The Provo High site has sat in transition for years; a medical school building, plus the daily gravity of faculty, staff, and eventually students, gives the Freedom Boulevard–Utah Valley Hospital corridor a new anchor. It lands, notably, in the same few square miles as the Provo Towne Centre redevelopment — the city's western and southern edges are being redrawn at the same time.
Housing demand gets another floor under it. Sixty students a year is small at first, but medical students, residents-to-be, faculty, and staff all need places to live in a market that's already tight — the same pressure behind BYU's Wymount Terrace rebuild and the broader trends in our Provo real estate market analysis.
Healthcare gravity grows. A teaching program clustered around Utah Valley Hospital tends to pull specialists, research activity, and clinical capacity with it over time. For how the valley's healthcare system works today, see our guide to healthcare in Provo.
And BYU's profile shifts. A university known for undergraduate teaching, business, and law adds a professional school that takes decades to mature — the kind of institutional bet that changes how a campus sees itself. For everything else BYU, The BYU Guide collects our full coverage.
What to watch next
Three checkpoints, in order: the LCME's preliminary-accreditation decision (possible as soon as October 2026); if granted, the first admissions cycle for the fall 2027 founding class of 60; and the building's progress on West Campus. BYU has been deliberately quiet between milestones — the university's own medical school site is the canonical source for status changes — and we'll cover each one on The Wire as it lands.
For now, the summary is simple: the school is real, the site visit is done, and the next few months decide whether the first white coats arrive in Provo in 2027.
Facts current as of July 10, 2026. Accreditation status can change; for the official record, see the BYU School of Medicine and LCME websites.
Frequently Asked Questions
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