HBCU Morgan State University Proposes Plans for New Medical School

Morgan State University has some major plans set for 2024.

The university announced a proposal for a new medical school, reportedly making it the first to be affiliated with a historically Black college or university in nearly 50 years. 

According to CBS News, the HBCU’s new College of Osteopathic Medicine, in partnership with Ascension Saint Agnes Hospital, will be a for-profit, private medical school. 

Plans for the medical school include offering minority students from underserved backgrounds the resources to learn and work in Baltimore.

With hopes that the private program will aid in having more physicians in the medical field, CBS News reports that the university will have an impact beyond the college and hospital campuses. 

“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.

Ascension St. Agnes is located near the HBCU in Baltimore. The community hospital is committed to ensuring future students will experience the unique training that the organization says “can’t be found everywhere.”

“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.”

Reports predict that the HBCU’s new medical school will be made up of approximately 700 students and 150 employees. 

“The economic impact of this school over the course of the next 10 years is probably about $1.2 billion,” said Dr. Sealey.

According to The Baltimore Banner, the university was granted state Board of Public Works approval to lease space for the medical school on its Baltimore campus. The medical school’s founders say two primary objectives are to produce more Black doctors and provide Black communities in Baltimore with access to physicians that look like them.