Less than two years since this undergraduate medical education strategy was created and announced in 2020, the More in Common Alliance now has three of the five proposed CommonSpirit Health sites up and running.
Fall 2021 – Chattanooga, Tennessee
As the first site to accept fourth-year Morehouse School of Medicine students, the training program at CHI Memorial grew from five students total to five students per month, with a goal of doubling that number in its second year. The More in Common Alliance was able to secure engagement and demonstrate value to both the hospital and the greater community, showing that the program can be successful on an ambitious schedule and scale.
Going forward, community outreach continues into targeted education and medical associations to develop a pipeline of prospective applicants to Morehouse for the first portion of their undergraduate medical education. Concurrently, focus is on supporting facility physicians and developing preceptors to continue the promising momentum of training slots.
Fall 2022 – Seattle, Washington
Students from Morehouse School of Medicine have been training at Virginia Mason Medical Center in urology and anesthesiology, as well as the Kaizen-based Virginia Mason Production System, a specialized approach to high-quality, high-value care based on distribution of information and authority. Assessment data from this first year of rotations was a positive reflection of the facility’s established focus on education.
In addition to attracting students from Atlanta, the Seattle site is investing in pipeline work in the Alaskan Native and Pacific Islander communities that are both underrepresented in medicine. The vision is that learners be exposed and prepared through enrichment before high school, recruited to Morehouse for medical school, return to the Pacific Northwest for clinical training and residency, and ultimately practice medicine in their home communities.
Fall 2022 – Lexington, Kentucky
Clinical training in Kentucky is distributed across multiple hospital sites to provide students with relevant experience in a range of facility sizes, specialties, and both rural and urban settings. Initial rotations in emergency and neurological care will be followed by obstetrics and gynecology in the coming months. Initial response has been positive from both students and hospital leadership, noting the extraordinary level of care being taken to provide the resources and support for an experience that yields practical value, while aligning with facility values of collaboration and social justice.
Kentucky is also being evaluated as a potential location to expand graduate medical education. As with undergraduate programs, this potential is being considered with a focus on educational capacity, care value, and community benefit that pervades the entire More in Common Alliance initiative.