Meharry Medical College

History

Meharry Medical College was one of six medical institutions established between the years of 1876 and 1900 in the state of Tennessee. These schools were founded after the end of the Civil War when slaves had been freed. Because of their former restrictions, there were as yet few African-American physicians, and many freedmen in need of health care. Because of segregation, most hospitals would not admit African Americans, and many white physicians often chose not to serve freedmen. During the late 19th century and into the early 20th century, most medical institutions accepted few, if any, African-American students. To combat this shortage of health care and the lack of accessibility to medical education, individuals, such as Samuel Meharry, and organizations, such as the Medical Association of Colored Physicians, Surgeons, Dentists, and Pharmacists (later renamed the National Medical Association), helped to found medical schools specifically for African Americans.

The college was named for Samuel Meharry, a young Irish American immigrant who worked as a salt and grit trader on the Kentucky-Tennessee frontier. After achieving some success, he and four of his brothers later made a major donation to help establish the college. As a young trader, Meharry had been aided by a family of freedmen, whose names are unknown. Meharry reportedly told the formerly enslaved family, "I have no money, but when I can I shall do something for your race."

Students at Central Tennessee College (CTC) approached the college president about setting up a medical school in 1875. The president, John Braden, approached Samuel Meharry to discuss the proposal. In 1875, Meharry, together with four of his brothers, donated a total of $15,000 to assist with establishing a medical department at CTC, a historically black college in Nashville, Tennessee. they opened the Medical College at CTC in 1876 with a starting class of nine students. The classes took place in the basement of the Clark Memorial Methodist Episcopal Church. The first regular year of classes began in October 1876 and had eleven students in that group. The medical program was initially two years long, but they added an additional year in 1879 and a fourth year to the course of study in 1893.

Hubbard, a physician, served as the founding president of the medical college. The first student graduated in 1877. The second class, which had its commencement in 1878, had three graduates.

In 1886, the Dental Department was founded, followed by a Pharmacy Department founded in 1889. The Dental and Pharmaceutical Building was dedicated on October 20, 1889. By 1896, half of all "regularly educated physicians then practicing in the South" had graduated from Meharry.

A nurse-training school was also developed during the 1900–1901 school year and the first class had eight students. A training hospital, Mercy Hospital, was built during the 1901–1902 school year. This hospital was replaced in 1916 and named the George W. Hubbard Hospital. Meharry Auditorium, with a 1,000 person capacity, was built in 1904.

In 1900, CTC changed its name to Walden University. In 1915, the medical department faculty of Walden University received a separate charter to operate independently as Meharry Medical College. The college continued to be privately funded. The Medical College remained in its original buildings, and Walden University moved to another campus in Nashville in 1922.

In 1910, Meharry absorbed medical students from Flint Medical College when that school was closed. Meharry also graduated a large number of women physicians for the time period, with 39 women having graduated by 1920. Its reputation suffered in 1914 when it was dropped to Class B status. Abraham Flexner of the General Education Board (a Rockefeller program) provided advice and funding to rebuild its status. As a result in 1923, Meharry was restored to a "grade-A institution" by the American Medical Association (AMA).

Since its founding, Meharry Medical College has added several graduate programs in the areas of science, medicine, and public health. In 1938, the School of Graduate Studies and Research was founded. The first master's degree program, a Master of Science in Public Health, was established in 1947. In the 1950s, the nursing school and dental technology school were ended. The department of Psychiatry was established in 1961 by school president, Lloyd Charles Elam, a psychiatrist. During the 1960s, Meharry began to focus on understanding the basis of health outcome differences to improve health care. In 1968, Meharry created the Matthew Walker Health Center to provide health services to the community. Also in 1968, the school added a Ph.D. degree in basic sciences.

By the late 1960s and early 1970s, 83 percent of all African American physicians had been trained at Meharry Medical College and Howard University School of Medicine. In 1970, more than 60 percent of black medical students worked as residents at these two colleges. In 1972, Meharry started receiving federal distress grants which were given to medical schools with deficits in operating costs and problems with accreditation. By 1976, the school campus took up space on 65 acres.

In 1981, the accrediting body of the AMA put Meharry on probation because there were not enough patients in the Hubbard Hospital for students and the student to teacher ratio was too high. In 1983, president Ronald Reagan allowed the school to work with patients in the nearby veterans' hospitals and the Blanchfield Army Community Hospital and the college regained full accreditation. By 1986, around 46 percent of all black faculty members in medical schools had graduated from Meharry.

In 1972, a Ph.D. program was implemented. A decade later in 1982, Meharry established an M.D/Ph.D. program. In 2004, Meharry created a Master's of Science in Clinical Investigation program (2004).

The Hubbard Hospital, belonging to Meharry Medical College, closed in 1994 and was renovated as the new site for the Metropolitan Nashville General Hospital, opening in November 1997. The year 1994 was also a start for more renovations of campus buildings initiated by campus president, John E. Maupin Jr. The school was also suffering from a $49 million deficit and morale at the school was low. The Nashville General Hospital's lease money, however, helped bring money into the school and eventually, by June 1995, the finances of the school were stabilized. In 1999, the college formed an alliance with Vanderbilt University.

In 2005, Meharry was censured by the American Association of University Professors for not observing generally recognized principles of academic freedom and tenure.

On November 9, 2017, Meharry, under president James E.K. Hildreth, signed a memorandum of agreement with Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), America's largest for-profit operator of health care facilities. Under the agreement, Meharry's medical students will gain clinical training at HCA's TriStar Southern Hills Medical Center in Nashville. Meharry students had previously received clinical training at numerous sites, primarily Nashville General Hospital, which had moved on-campus in the 1990s. Withdrawal of the alliance with Meharry threateded the provision of inpatient care at Nashville General Hospital. A board member resigned over this surprise decision and announcement.

In April 2019, then-dean and senior vice president of health affairs Veronica Mallett secured a partnership with Detroit Medical Center to increase the number of Meharry students complete their studies at that hospital. Meharry students had been accepted at Sinai-Grace Hospital alongside Michigan State and Wayne State university since July 2018.

In September 2020, philanthropist Michael Bloomberg donated $34 million to help lower student debt at the institution. Bloomberg's gift was the largest in Meharry's history.

In 2021, Meharry launched Meharry Medical College Ventures to aid in galvanizing healthcare breakthroughs and solutions to improve health outcomes and reduce health disparities through forming partnerships with medical facilities across the US. Mallett was the inaugural president and CEO, serving until 2023. She has been succeeded by Reginald Holt.

In March 2022, MacKenzie Scott donated $20 million to Meharry. Scott's unrestricted gift is one of the largest in Meharry's history.

In 2024, Meharry received a $175 million gift from Bloomberg Philanthropies to support the school's endowment.

Presidents

George W. Hubbard served as Meharry Medical College's first president from its founding in 1876 until his retirement in 1921.

The second president of the school was John J. Mullowney, who served from 1921 to 1938. He implemented changes in order to improve Meharry's overall academic rating. Admission requirements were tightened and strictly enforced, a superintendent was installed at the hospital, and the number of faculty, research facilities, and hospital facilities were all expanded. Two years after Mullowney took leadership, Meharry Medical College recovered its ‘A’ rating.

Succeeding Meharry Medical College presidents have been:

• Edward Lewis Turner (1938–1944),
• M. Don Clawson (1944–1950),
• Harold D. West (1952–1966),
• Lloyd C. Elam (1968–1981),
• Richard G. Lester (1981–1982),
• David Satcher (1982–1993),
• John E. Maupin (1994–2006),
• Wayne J. Riley (2006–2013),
• Anna Epps (2013–2015),
• James E.K. Hildreth (2015–present)

From 1950 to 1952 a committee guided the institution instead of a president. In 1952, Meharry welcomed its first African-American president, Dr. Harold D. West. West made numerous changes, made possible by his successful $20 million fund drive. He added a new wing to Hubbard Hospital, eliminated the nursing and the dental technology programs to concentrate Meharry Medical College's efforts on its primary strengths in medicine and dentistry, and purchased land adjacent to the campus for expansion.

Research and innovation

Meharry Medical College has historically focused on advancing biomedical knowledge and improving health outcomes, particularly for underserved populations.

In 1893, Meharry’s first female medical graduate, Georgianna Esther Patton, conducted early epidemiological studies in Liberia, identifying anemia and dropsy as prevalent health issues among the indigenous Kru people of Monrovia. In 1910, physician and chair of pathology, Arthur Melvin Townsend identified pellagra as a nutritional deficiency disorder, publishing his research findings in The Journal of the National Medical Association.

Since the early 1970s, Meharry has been active in molecular and genetics research. Geneticists Joseph Galley and Thomas Shockley led pioneering research on keloid scarring, a condition disproportionately affecting people of African descent. In 1972, Meharry established the Sickle Cell Center, one of the first ten such centers in the United States, offering diagnostic and healthcare services across 40 counties in Middle Tennessee for newborns with inherited blood disorders.

In 2015, physician and HIV researcher, James EK Hildreth was appointed president and shifted Meharry’s research focus toward precision and personalized medicine, integrating genomics, proteomics, molecular imaging, bioinformatics, artificial intelligence, and big data analytics.

Meharry Medical College research initiatives to address unmet healthcare needs include:

• NIH AIM-AHEAD Southeast Hub, advancing artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities to transform health outcomes
• Center for Genome Research, funded by the National Human Genome Research Institute
• NSF Innovation-Corps Mid-South Hub, promoting biomedical entrepreneurship
• Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Partnership to Accelerate Precision Health research at HBCUs
• Dry January USA, a public health initiative promoting a healthier and balanced approach to alcohol consumption in rural and urban populations
• Beacon of Hope program, funded by Novartis, Sanofi and others to enhance clinical and translational research
• Equitable Breakthroughs in Medicine Development (EQBMED), funded by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, to diversify clinical trials
• The Diaspora Human Genomics Institute (DHGI), a non-profit chartered by Meharry Medical College, to improve the quality of the human condition and its environment with a particular focus on persons of African ancestry
• Together for CHANGE (T4C), a biopharma-funded initiative governed by DHGI to build a reference genome database for African ancestry populations and new STEM pathways
• Meharry DNA Learning Center, in collaboration with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, exposing K-12 grade students and educators to DNA biology

Meharry Medical College has formed strategic research and academic partnerships with research institutions, including: the University of Memphis, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, the University of Zambia, Kaohsiung Medical University of Taiwan, and Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University of South Africa.

BS/MD Program

Twelve universities are in partnership with Meharry to recruit and prepare their pre-med students for the academics of Meharry. The ten universities are Alabama A&M University, Albany State University, Alcorn State University, Fisk University, Grambling State University, Hampton University, Jackson State University, Southern University, Tennessee State University, and Virginia Union University. Beginning Summer 2024, Tuskegee University joined the BS/MD partnership.

Notable alumni

References

Sources

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