As the country grapples with a projected physician shortage, a wave of new medical school construction is underway — and the latest planned projects share a notable distinction: Each represents a first of its kind.
The state of Delaware announced a June 2 partnership with Philadelphia-based Thomas Jefferson University to create the first four-year medical school in the state’s history. The plans include establishing a regional campus of Sidney Kimmel Medical College, filling a gap that leaves Delaware among only three states without an MD- or DO-granting institution. The school will allow students to complete their entire medical education in Delaware while helping build a physician pipeline statewide.
Two additional medical schools are also taking shape in California. In late May, Stockton, Calif.-based University of the Pacific shared plans to open a $150 million medical school — the state’s first MD-granting institution outside its largest population centers. The Pacific School of Medicine will be located on the university’s Stockton campus and will welcome its first cohort of students in fall 2030, pending accreditation approval.
Meanwhile, Sacramento, Calif.-based Sutter Health and Santa Clara (Calif.) University debuted the Mark & Mary Stevens School of Medicine, which will be the first MD-granting school established in the San Francisco Bay Area in more than a century. That school will be embedded within Sutter’s integrated health system, which is also building a 272-bed medical center on its West Santa Clara Campus, expected to open by 2031.
In the Upper Midwest, South Dakota is considering founding the Indigenous School of Medicine, the first in the U.S., in Rapid City. The effort has received a $1 million grant to conduct a feasibility study and develop a business plan, along with a $100,000 capacity-building grant from NDN Collective, a Native American advocacy group. If realized, the school would collaborate on curriculum and share faculty with the University of South Dakota’s Sanford School of Medicine in Sioux Falls.
These projects are part of a broader national build-out driven by a looming physician shortage that the Association of American Medical Colleges projects could reach 86,000 by 2036. Many of the new schools are deliberately targeting primary and rural care, where shortages are most acute.
Against that backdrop, one institution is drawing renewed attention for the unconventional model it had built from the ground up. The founding leaders of the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell — launched in 2008 — detailed their approach in their book, “Revolutionizing Medical Education: Proven Blueprint to Transform Curricula and Prepare Future-Ready Physicians,” which chronicled the leaders’ experiences in promulgating their pedagogical philosophy.
According to the book, physicians should view themselves as collaborators rather than competitors. The school embodies this idea by replacing multiple-choice exams with essays, oral assessments and high-fidelity simulations, while eliminating grades and class rank entirely. To further manifest the practical application of their education, first-year students complete an accelerated EMT training, respond to emergency calls, and log hundreds of clinical hours before finishing their second year.
The school’s leaders told Becker’s that smaller, newer institutions unburdened by the inertia of an established curriculum are better positioned to replicate the model than established schools.
“Some places will never let progress interfere with 100 years of tradition,” said David Battinelli, MD, the school’s dean and New Hyde Park, N.Y.-based Northwell Health’s physician-in-chief. “We didn’t have a tradition. We had a blank slate.”
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