When Xavier University of Louisiana announced in spring 2022 that the institution was pursuing a new medical school, some giggled, some laughed, and others whispered, "That's not going to happen."
In my column some days later, I wrote, "If there is a higher education institution with the sort of track record of fundraising, partnership and student success needed to pull this off, it’s Xavier. Stand by and watch the university's leaders go to work."
In January 2023, Xavier announced a medical program partnership with Ochsner Health. Last month, Xavier and Ochsner announced the name, the founding dean and the location.
Ochsner CEO Pete November, right, and Xavier University of Louisiana President Dr. Reynold Verret, left, shake hands after signing a formal agreement announcing the location of the new medical school in Benson Tower on Poydras Street in New Orleans on Monday, April 29, 2024. (Photo by Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune)
The Xavier Ochsner College of Medicine will open on two floors at Benson Tower, where Ochsner has had space next to the Caesars Superdome, less than a half mile from the Tulane Medical School and a bit more than half a mile from the LSU Health Sciences Center. That's smack in the New Orleans BioDistrict, where local and state leaders want to see medical institutions, practitioners, technicians, researchers, professors and students create a bio-health economic engine.
The Xavier Ochsner College of Medicine, or XOCOM, is on track to become the first HBCU medical school in the Gulf South.
The announcement didn't attract the kind of attention Beyoncé got when she dropped her Cowboy Carter album or when Taylor Swift, well, does anything. But about 2,000 YouTube viewers streamed the medical partnership announcement, and that ain't bad. I'm sure most of them weren't laughing.
Faculty and staff watch as Ochsner Health and Xavier University of Louisiana announce the future location of the Xavier Ochsner College of Medicine inside the Benson Tower on Poydras Street in New Orleans during a signing ceremony on Monday, April 29, 2024. (Photo by Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune)
I attended the announcement. It was quite a production. Various bigwigs, elected and political leaders, university and health system leaders, staff and students filled the Benson Tower's third floor, which was all dressed up for the occasion.
Still, I found it hard to imagine what XOCOM might look like. So I asked.
The new college will be housed on the building's first and third floors. In ground-floor space once occupied by the fashionable retailer Lord & Taylor (young'uns, ask your mothers or grandmothers if you don't recognize that store name), tentative plans call for administrative and faculty offices and instructional labs, including a gross anatomy dissection training lab. Think cadavers and 3D models that are critical for training medical students before they begin poking and prodding you.
The third floor will likely include classrooms; small, medium and large conference rooms; a student activity center and break room; study spaces and a team-based learning classroom with high-definition audiovisual equipment. They're planning a 200-seat auditorium, too.
Xavier Ochsner will soon establish itself in the BioDistrict, in the ranks of U.S. medical schools, and in the small but growing ranks of medical schools for Black and Brown people.
Ochsner is adding more than its name. An Ochsner representative said more specific costs will be shared in "upcoming" months. Ochsner will "fund XOCOM through a variety of sources, including tuition and philanthropy, which is critical to establishing meaningful endowment for the school to proceed. Ochsner Health will also support the school."
Of the more than 150 medical degree-granting institutions and more than 30 osteopathic medical schools, only four focus on educating and training Black physicians and health professionals: Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, D.C.; Meharry Medical College in Nashville, which has a partnership with HBCU Fisk University but is a separate HBCU; Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, which started as a part of Morehouse College, then became a separate institution; and Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, Historically Black Institution and a Minority Serving Institution but not an HBCU, in South Los Angeles. Morgan State University, a Baltimore-based HBCU, is pursuing a medical school path focused on osteopathic medicine.
Photos on a wall pay tribute to Xavier University of Louisiana's current medical programs as staff gather at the announcement for the future location of the Xavier Ochsner College of Medicine inside the Benson Tower on Poydras Street in New Orleans during a signing ceremony on Monday, April 29, 2024. (Photo by Chris Granger, The Times-Picayune)
Morgan State identified space a few years ago and the med school plans to admit students in 2025. Xavier plans to admit students in about three years. If these things happen, Xavier would be the sixth historically Black medical institution in America.
Morgan State and Xavier are now competing with Howard, Meharry, Morehouse, Drew and all other medical schools to attract the brightest health care professors and professionals while building a program that meets or exceeds all accreditation standards.
I don't care which HBCU medical school becomes America's fifth or sixth. I just want to see each program succeed. Living closest to Xavier, I have a vested interest in seeing XULA continue to excel as it pursues the goal of closing health disparity gaps in our community and nationally.
