New medical school proposed at Morgan State, first one at HBCU school in 45 years
BALTIMORE – For the first time in 45 years, a new medical school at a historically Black college or university is opening and it's proposed at Morgan State.
The university will partner with Ascension Saint Agnes Hospital to launch a for-profit, private medical school aimed to open in 2024.
"Let's do this for Baltimore, let's do this for our community," said Dr. John Sealey, Founding Dean of the proposed College of Osteopathic Medicine at MSU.
The school will give underserved minority students an opportunity to live, learn and work in Baltimore.
"If you want to be a doctor there, you're going to be a doctor there," Dr. Sealey said. "That's the whole important aspect of it. You see it, you dream it and you do it."
Eventually, about 700 students and 150 employees that will make up the medical school.
The university believes the impacts will take root beyond the college and hospital campuses.
"The economic impact of this school over the course of the next 10 years is probably about $1.2 billion," said Dr. Sealey.
While the school expects to give back to Baltimore in more ways than one, the program will also feed the need for more physicians.
"There's a shortage in the next 10 years, anywhere between 35,000 to 120,000 physicians in the United States of America. We want to make sure we're doing our part in training that next generation and we also want to make sure that the physicians we're training are coming from the community they're going to serve," explained Ascension St. Agnes Chief Medical Officer, Jon D'Souza.
As a community hospital, Ascension St. Agnes said future students will get the training that can't be found everywhere.
"It's going to have a strong emphasis on population health. That means we don't just fix a problem when it becomes a medical issue, we work within communities to prevent problems," said D'Souza.
The announcement of the proposed school comes during HBCU Awareness month. Maryland is home to four: Morgan State, Coppin State and Bowie State universities, plus the University of Maryland Eastern Shore.
