There is something not quite right about the way medicine is taught in Nashville at Belmont University. You can see it when you walk by the College of Medicine building on Wedgewood: students in white coats moving from one conversation to another. It may seem like a small thing, but it points to something the school has known from the start.
Given how bad things were in the world at the time, the first announcement of the Thomas F. Frist, Jr. College of Medicine came in October 2020. This could have been a sign of bad timing or strong conviction. Now that I look back, it seems more like the second option. The school is Nashville’s newest medical school. It has a long history and a mission statement that isn’t like most institutional boilerplate: to train doctors who really believe in healing the whole person.
In the health care field, that phrase “whole-person” is used so often that it can lose its meaning. But at Frist College of Medicine, it seems like it’s more than just making ads. This philosophy is said to guide every part of the curriculum, from classroom work to clinical experience. We’ll have to wait and see if that still holds true as class sizes rise and the stress of accreditation and finding a residency increases. Still, the goal is pretty clear.
One of the biggest healthcare companies in the country, HCA Healthcare, helped to open the school. It is also a major clinical affiliate of the college. This partnership is useful because it gives students access to many clinical settings that most brand-new medical schools couldn’t provide in their early years. It’s a big plus, especially for students who want to gain real patient experience before they graduate.
The first class, which is now becoming the Class of 2029, posed for group photos on the campus steps. They looked nervous and excited, like students everywhere else, and their coats still looked a little new. But what the school is trying to do with them is not like what most medical schools do. To make things more interesting, each student gets a challenging curriculum that is tailored to their needs, and they get early and ongoing clinical experience.
It’s important to note that Belmont brings more to this than just its location. For a long time, the university has been known for personalizing education with smaller classes and teachers who know their students. It’s a good question to see if that culture easily translates into the level of intensity needed for medical school. But early signs show that people are really trying to make it happen.
Nashville itself gives this story more meaning. There are now dozens of hospital companies in the city, and the ecosystem of medical innovation is growing. The city has quietly become one of the most important healthcare hubs in the country. There are clear benefits to having a medical school that is connected to and based in HCA Healthcare. There are also likely some expectations that the school needs to meet.
The Thomas F. Frist, Jr. College of Medicine seems to be trying to answer a question that the medical community as a whole has been thinking about for years: what does it look like to train doctors who treat people, not just conditions? That being said, the answer might still be being found. But that is the right question to ask.
