The University of Kentucky’s expanded medical education initiative with The Medical Center is an “important partnership” for the future, UK President Eli Capilouto said Thursday.

During a meeting with the Daily News editorial board, the UK president also addressed the university’s recent decision to appeal a recent opinion by the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office that found UK violated the state’s Open Records Act.

Capilouto, who became UK’s 12th president in 2011, is in town for a UK Board of Trustees meeting Friday at the Augenstein Alumni Center at Western Kentucky University.

UK announced in February it will expand its medical school slots by 30 percent using a partnership that locally includes WKU and The Medical Center. UK’s program currently has 521 students, with 139 in the most recently admitted class that will graduate in 2019.

The UK College of Medicine initiative – which in eastern Kentucky also includes a similar partnership between St. Clair Regional Medical Center, King’s Daughters Medical Center and Morehead State University – could begin as early as 2018 in Bowling Green. The program is intended to help alleviate a physician shortage, particularly in rural areas.

“Kentucky needs more physicians,” Capilouto said. “Kentuckians shouldn’t have to go far from home to get the best care.”

Capilouto said a technology committee and one regarding curriculum is currently meeting to map out the details.

“We have more of an ability to expand classes here than we could in Lexington,” the UK president told the editorial board. “We need traditional classroom space and we need technology.”

The Medical Center has announced that UK medical school classes will be held on the third floor of the The Medical Center-WKU Health Sciences Center building once the doctorate of physical therapy program there is moved to the new sports medicine complex planned next door to the Houchens Industries L.T. Smith football stadium.

“I don’t think the space hurdle is a significant one,” the UK president said.

Meanwhile, Attorney General Andy Beshear’s office found that UK had violated the Open Records Act when the university turned down a request from the Kentucky Kernel student newspaper for documents related to a sexual harassment investigation involving a professor who has since resigned. UK also refused to let the attorney general examine the records to see if they could legally be withheld.

Capilouto said Thursday that UK is governed by the federal Office of Civil Rights and the U.S. Department of Education as to how it can release information concerning its employees and students. Under dispute is the dissemination of information regarding apparent victims of sexual assault.

“These things are never black and white,” Capilouto said, noting UK receives about 2,000 open records requests each year and only challenges a handful of them.

Capilouto said revealing the identities of sexual assault victims “chills” the prospects of victims coming forward in the university’s investigatory process.

“We have trained personnel and a well-described process,” he said. “I do not even see these investigative files. It is important to me that when it comes to matters of this nature, that privacy is respected,” Capilouto said.

UK recently sued the independent Kernel newspaper in Fayette Circuit Court in an effort to challenge Beshear’s opinion in the matter. Beshear announced Wednesday that he will seek to intervene in the lawsuit.

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