CAMDEN, N.J. (CBS) - Even before Cooper Hospital’s new medical school has opened or accepted its first student, it has received an $800,000 federal grant.

The five-year grant from the US Department of Health and Human Services will help train doctors for service in the real world.   And in that world a lot of people don’t have insurance, particularly in Camden, where the school will be located.

(Dr. Paul Katz. Photo provided)

“This grant will help us fund an ambulatory clinic that will be student-run, supervised by our faculty, in which the students will provide care to their own cadre of patients over the four years that they are with us,” says Dr. Paul Katz (right), dean of the Cooper Medical School at Rowan University.

So the poor will get health care and the students will get hands-on experience.

The school has already received preliminary accreditation and plans to welcome its first class next August.

Reported by David Madden, KYW Newsradio 1060