Here’s the latest on the UNC med school branch campus coming to Charlotte

Novant Health is one step closer to bringing UNC medical students to a new branch campus at Charlotte’s Presbyterian Medical Center, the hospital system announced last week.

Novant first announced in November it would partner with the UNC School of Medicine to bring a branch campus to Novant Health Presbyterian Medical Center.

Now, a key approval will move the deal forward. The Liaison Committee on Medical Education, an accreditation body, determined Novant and the UNC School of Medicine have enough resources to proceed with the training plan, starting in February 2022.

“This was what we were waiting on,” Charlotte campus director Mark Higdon told the Observer.

The first nine students — five women and four men — have already been matched with the program, Higdon said.

And the branch campus will have the capacity to expand to 30 students, according to Novant.

“I’m sure UNC being the excellent place to train that they are, they will have no trouble filling those seats,” Higdon said. “And we’ll step up and look forward to expanding that class in the future.”

The branch campus will serve third- and fourth-year medical students, with a focus on health equity.

More medical students training in Charlotte is a positive for the community, Higdon said. He hopes increasing training in the area will lead to more students choosing to stay in Charlotte after leaving school.

The UNC School of Medicine had trained students through a different branch campus in Charlotte, under a partnership with Atrium Health, established in 2010, the Observer has previously reported.

Atrium hosted around 60 students — typically third- and fourth-year students — at the Charlotte branch campus, Atrium spokesman Dan Fogleman told the Observer in November. Many of the third-year students will return to finish out the program with Atrium, finishing in May 2022, Fogleman said at the time.

Medical school in Charlotte

Atrium, too, has plans to bring more medical students to Charlotte. In March, Atrium Health CEO Gene Woods revealed the location of Charlotte’s first four-year medical school, a partnership between Atrium and Wake Forest Baptist Health, including Wake Forest School of Medicine.

The partnership, first announced in April 2019, will bring a second campus of the medical school to Charlotte. The new school will be built on a 20-acre parcel at the intersection of Baxter and South McDowell streets, Woods said.

“Because it’s right off of I-277, I believe it will become an iconic addition to the Queen City skyline,” Woods said. “Everyone who sees it will know this is a place where excellence lives and excellence is learned.”

The school expects to host its first class of about 48 students in 2024.

And Novant’s Higdon is excited about competitor Atrium’s medical school too.

“It’s good for Charlotte,” he told the Observer. “… The core thing is the workforce pipeline to help with education, caring for our community, touching those areas where we need health care desperately is all enhanced by training people where they will eventually practice.

“That’s at the core of this. So, the more the merrier.”