It was the marriage of whiplash and deja vu. Hours before Gov. Schwarzenegger debuted the latest version of a hellish state budget proposal, the University of California's governing Board of Regents gave a unanimous thumbs-up for continued planning for a multi-million-dollar Valley medical school headquartered at UC Merced.

Among the regents concerns during the nearly three hours of presentations, Q/A: The state has no money, why are we creating a new money-eating entity?  The other UC campuses need the money that would adhere to this project, why not direct dollars to established institutions?  The core UC Merced has yet to be fully "UC branded" with excellence, why not solidify that before stretching to create a doctor-making program?

Anybody, including me, who observed or covered as a reporter the creation of the UC Merced campus can be forgiven for having a flashback. Tweak a word or sentiment, and you had similar naysayers 20 years ago when talk turned to plopping a high-tech campus in puddles of fairy shrimp and steer flop.

Would Fresno have been a better location? Yep. But the locals couldn't agree on a site and a strategy, and Merced stepped up. Should Fresno be home to a new med school? Yep. It will be a key player, but ...

A troop of Valley citizens made their case to the regents. UC Merced Chancellor Steve Kang and Dean Maria Pallavicini delivered formal presentation. Kang replied to numerous regents concerns, mostly about fund-raising. No cash in hand, no school. The hardest question, though, and the one that probably needs better answering for the regents: Can you prove that physicians who go to a four-year medical school in the Valley will stay here for their three-year-plus residency or actually open a practice here? That's different than someone who comes here for a residency and stays.

Said Regent Eleanor Brewer: "The medical community has to welcome the students in the community as they graduate, to build a practice."

Regent George Marcus, among one or two others, didn't dismiss that the Central Valley has huge health access issues, fewer docs, more chronic illness. But the med school idea, he said, was in a "fantasy phase." Nope, said Regent Sherry Lansing, "it's a hard-core reality."

Community Medical Centers was among Valley health providers and others that endorsed a new med school. In partnership with UCSF Fresno, Community is the main doctor-recruiter-trainer-retainer in the Valley.

Today's vote gives med school backers a year or so to fashion a formal proposal and business plan for regent review.

Of course, it's about the money -- fighting through the whiplash of hard times (or as one regent suggested, how about tapping million-dollar Valley farmers as donors?).

Final word comes from UC Regent Brewer: "When I think of the Central Valley, if not us, then who else would do this?"