Lloyd Dean and Valerie Montgomery Rice, M.D.: Partnership to Increase Diversity in Healthcare

A partnership between the Morehouse School of Medicine and CommonSpirit Health will create a joint undergraduate and graduate medical education program to train and educate the next generation of Black health clinicians and researchers.

The two organizations have created a 10-year, $100 million partnership that will develop and train more Black physicians, Lloyd Dean, CEO of CommonSpirit Health, a chain of 142 nonprofit hospitals headquartered in Chicago,, and Valerie Montgomery Rice, M.D., president of Morehouse School of Medicine, said in a recent interview with Managed Healthcare Executive®.

Related: Lloyd Dean and Valerie Montgomery Rice, M.D.: The Need for Diversity in Healthcare

“What we did was recognize how much our missions aligned and that we were both interested in ensuring that we increase the quality of care, access to care, and to diversify the healthcare workforce and really focus in on underserved communities,” Rice said.

Through the partnership, the organizations will establish five regional medical campuses across the CommonSpirit platform in one of the 21 states. They will also establish 10 residency training sites that will have no less than three different disciplines training at each site.

“So you will see Morehouse School of Medicine go from 100 medical students per year to more than 200 medical students per year,” Rice said.