Belmont University opens medical school amid worsening physician shortage

Some of Belmont’s neoclassical buildings — with the signature white columns, domed roofs and clock towers — date before the Civil War. But one of them is brand new.

“This began just three years ago with a hole in the ground, literally,” said Dr. Anderson Spickard.

He’s the dean of the new Thomas F. Frist, Jr. College of Medicine. Among other things, the new building will house Belmont’s medical school, which is welcoming its inaugural class in about a week. They’re having a white coat ceremony on Aug. 2.*

A building’s design gives some insight into its function, and the new medical school isn’t laid out like a traditional classroom building.

There are some obvious examples, like simulation rooms that mirror emergency departments or dark rooms full of virtual reality headsets. Some took a little explaining.

The college still has the typical lecture hall, but each rung of the amphitheater has two rows of tables nestled into it. Spickard said it’s so students can turn around and organize into groups. There are also microphones hanging above the tables, so students’ questions can be broadcast throughout the hall.

“People joke, you know, ‘the sage on the stage,’ which is old school but still has a role,” Spickard said. “And then, we combine that with the ability to be adapting during the moment.”

New medical schools aren’t exactly common.

About half of the country’s medical schools were accredited before 1942, according to data from the Association of American Medical Colleges. That includes three of Tennessee’s existing medical schools: Meharry Medical College and Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville plus the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis.

Another quarter of the country’s medical schools were accredited in the 1960s and ’70s. East Tennessee State University’s James H. Quillen College of Medicine in Johnson City was one of them, accredited in 1978.

There is a need for new ones. The physician shortage is worsening.

The AAMC has been calling for major enrollment increases to stymie it. By the association’s estimates, the country could be short by about 86,000 doctors by 2036.

It also found that about 42% of the country’s existing physicians are at least 55 years old and will likely retire within the next decade.

Despite its health care resources, Tennessee isn’t immune to the shortage. A separate study estimates the state will be short 6,000 doctors by 2030.

This first cohort at Belmont’s medical school has about 50 students in it, but administrators are hoping to increase class sizes incrementally.

The facility cost about $180 million to build. It also includes space for other disciplines, including nursing, pharmacy, occupational therapy and social work.

It’s named for Thomas F. Frist, Jr., one of the co-founders of HCA Healthcare. Several other buildings on campus are named for another co-founder Jack C. Massey, including the college of business.

The university no longer bars students or faculty based on their religious affiliation, but Spickard says the medical school wants to protect a mission-driven nature. That’s also showing up in the building’s layout.

They built a quiet, transitional area that students have to enter on their way to the cadaver lab — designed so the students have some space to reflect before seeing their first patients.

“So that we’re coming in with reverence and perspective, and we’re exiting with the same,” he said. “And that’s what we want to commit to as a school: creating gantlets constantly for our students to regain their why, their purpose.”

This story has been updated to include the correct date of the white coat ceremony.