Medical School Proposed At Morgan State University
A medical school will possibly be coming to Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland, marking the first time in 45 years a medical school could open at an historically Black college or university.
According to CBS News, the HBCU is joining forces with Ascension St. Agnes Hospital to launch a for-profit, private medical school focusing on giving underserved students greater opportunities. Expected to open in 2024, the school will have approximately 700 students and 150 employees.
Jon D'Souza, Ascension St. Agnes Chief Medical Officer, told CBS that the potential school will assist in increasing the number of 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.”
Baltimore is home currently to two medical schools, the University of Maryland School of Medicine and the John Hopkins School of Medicine. Morgan State’s would be a first of its kind as an HBCU. The founding dean at the proposed school is Dr. John Sealey, himself an HBCU graduate.
In 1867, Morgan State University was initially founded as the Centenary Biblical Institute by the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church to train young men in ministry. In 1915, steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie granted the school $50,000 to build its present site in northeast Baltimore. Morgan State became a public institution in 1939 as a channel to provide educational opportunities to the city’s Black community. The university was named after Rev. Lyttleton F. Morgan, who served as Chairman of the Board of Trustees from 1876 until 1886.
