Page 10 - Morehouse School of Medicine Magazine

MOREHOUSE SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

hen Morehouse School of community. Their plans became reality College and became an independent ABOVE
Medicine President and Dean this year with the opening of Entra, a institution six years later, dedicated Location of MSM on
WValerie Montgomery Rice, $25 million development led by Atlan- to educating and training minority a 1975 city planning
map outlining the
M.D., looked across the street from ta-based Carter and Atlantic American primary care physicians, health care area within Atlanta
campus in 2014, she didn’t see just an Partners at the corner of Lee and Park professionals and researchers. The need Council District 4.
empty patch of land. She saw possibility streets that includes 187 market-rate in Atlanta and the rest of Georgia was
and an opportunity to address pressing apartments, an ambulatory care center,a especially acute—28 percent of the res- PREVIOUS SPREAD
Entra West End—
needs, fulfill the institution’s crucial fitness center operated by the YMCA, idents of the city were African Amer- which houses 187

mission and help west-side Atlanta to 2,624 square feet of retail space and a ican at that time, but just 2 percent of apartments—and
thrive. This was shortly after she took four-level parking deck. Georgia’s doctors were Black. the MSM Community
on her role as the sixth president of “This is a game changer,” said Dr. Now the Lee Street development is Health and Wellness
Center offer student

MSM, and, at the time, that span of red Montgomery Rice. the flagship entrance gateway to the housing, ambulatory
clay served little purpose. It is a game changer, especially for AUC institutions and the West End as and student patient
Meanwhile, MSM had no on-campus Atlanta’s historic West End, established the area undergoes a renaissance of care and a YMCA

housing for its students, who lost valu- in 1835. The beautiful tree-lined neigh- residential and commercial properties. fitness center for
the AUC and the
able hours each week while commuting borhoods just southwest of downtown “We view ourselves as an anchor community.

in Atlanta’s maddening traffic. Students began a slow decline from affluence institution for our area,” said Todd

at MSM, other students in the Atlanta into blight and disrepair after World Greene, executive director of the At-
University Center (AUC) and members War II. The prominent African Amer- lanta University Center Consortium
of the surrounding community also ican academic institutions of More- (AUCC). “As anchors, we think about
lacked access to convenient, equitable house College, Clark College, Atlanta what will make our community better,
health care. And the historic West End University and Spelman College were whether it is in health and welfare,

neighborhood, long central to Atlanta’s thriving while parts of the west side affordable and safe housing, helping to
civil rights movement, needed further nearby succumbed to the abandonment promote small businesses or even with
revitalization. of white flight. By 1976, the year after respect to tourism and visitors.”

So Dr. Montgomery Rice and her Morehouse School of Medicine was
team set out to turn that patch of land founded, the population of the West DEVELOPING HEALTH EQUITY
into a vibrant mixed-use development End was 86 percent African American. The ambitious project highlights MSM’s
that would bring housing, health and MSM began as a two-year basic sci- commitment to health equity. Students
help to the long underserved West End ences medical program at Morehouse and staff will share access to the facil-

8 Primarily Caring Fall 2020

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