TXTech Announces Large Donation, Medical School Name

EL PASO, TX. – The Texas Tech Health Sciences Center announced Friday it’s El Paso medical school will be named for Western Refining President and CEO Paul Foster.

“I wanted to do something that made a big difference and I think this medical school is going to be one of the best in the country,” stated Foster.

The announcement comes after Foster donated a whopping $50-million dollars to the school. The large private donation comes only a day after the University of Texas System approved $50 million dollars of state money for a new nursing school on the UTEP campus.

That’s now $100 million dollars in medical education money coming to El Paso, all of which was announced in the past two days.

“We open up a year from now and we’re gonna be in great shape…this is magnificent,” stated Kent Hance, the Chancellor of the Texas Tech University system. The school will be officially named the Paul L. Foster School of Medicine, he said.

Some medical leaders tell ABC-7 Texas Tech needs to be held accountable because their are rumors that some of the $50-million dollars will eventually be funneled to the Texas Tech school in Lubbock, Texas.

Doctor John Tune, a gastro-enterologist who works in the Providence Medical tower, stated, that in past occasions, Texas Tech has found ways to funnel funds meant for the medical school in El Paso back to Lubbock.

Tune stated local officials need to make sure the funds are distributed properly, spent the right way and, most importantly, that the medical school in El Paso be developed independently of the Lubbock medical school.

“In the past there has been some feelings among the physicians of El Paso, the clinics, and the functions here that Texas Tech El Paso has funneled money back to lubbock…even Senator Shapleigh was very concerned about it at one point,” he said.

Officials with Texas Tech stated the rumors have no basis in fact.