Charlotte is expected to have its first medical school in more than 100 years through a partnership between Wake Forest and Atrium Health. Atrium CEO Eugene Woods shared renderings of the future medical school building with the hospital system's board members during a meeting on Tuesday.
Woods did not specify where in Charlotte the new school would be located. He said the consulting firm Tripp Umbach estimated the new school will bring 20,000 jobs to the city and have a $2.5 billion impact.
“We’re looking at starting off with 1,600 talented faculty, about 3,200 learners across 100 specialized programs. So this is going to be a pretty robust offering from the start,” Woods said.
Woods said additional details are still being finalized and will be revealed in the coming months.
Atrium, Wake Forest Baptist Health and Wake Forest University originally announcedthe planned four-year medical school in April 2019. They have been waiting on federal regulators for months. Under federal antitrust law, the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice are required to review most proposed business deals valued at more than $94 million.
The Charlotte area is the largest metro area in the country without a medical school. North Carolina currently has five medical schools: in Chapel Hill, Durham, Greenville, Winston-Salem and a school of osteopathic medicine at Campbell University in Harnett County.
Charlotte currently has just medical training programs, such as the UNC School of Medicine in Chapel Hill's satellite campus in the city, which is under a partnership with Atrium.
