PITTSBURGH — A new four-year medical school campus is coming to Pittsburgh’s North Side.

Temple University School of Medicine and West Penn Allegheny Health System announced the project today and said that 30 students will be accepted in the first class in 2013.

Classes will be at existing buildings on Pittsburgh’s North Side near Allegheny General Hospital, Temple and the health system. The hospital will also provide the primary clinical education environment, to keep the costs of establishing the new campus to a minimum.

Renovations will be done to accommodate the school.

The school is expected to help the shortage of physicians in Western Pennsylvania by educating and retaining doctors to serve the community.

The new campus will provide classroom education to first- and second-year undergraduate medical school students, in addition to clinical training during the third and fourth years.

Temple University School of Medicine receives about 1,000 applications from prospective students in Western Pennsylvania annually. Temple will manage the application process for the new Pittsburgh campus.

The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine is the largest program in the Western Pennsylvania.