Written by Michelle Crouch
Co-published with Charlotte Ledger
For many years, Charlotte was the largest city in the United States without a four-year medical school. If all goes according to plan, things will finally change by next summer.
Wake Forest University School of Medicine’s Charlotte campus is scheduled to open in 2025, with the first class of 48 students expected to enroll in August. Over the next five years, enrollment is expected to grow to 100 students per class.
The campus will ultimately allow Wake Forest University School of Medicine to graduate approximately 245 physicians per year across its Winston-Salem and Charlotte campuses, helping to alleviate the state’s health care workforce shortage.
But the Charlotte Medical School campus is just one part of a larger transformation underway at the 20-acre site known as The Pearl in Charlotte’s uptown suburb of Midtown/Dilworth.
The Pearl aims to be a bustling medical innovation district, or “Silicon Valley of healthcare,” that attracts not only students but also researchers, high-tech startups, and biomedical companies.
Atrium Health and Wexford Science & Technology are driving the $1.5 billion development. The first phase includes two buildings: a 10-story research building (Research 1 Building) and a 14-story education center (Howard R. Levin Education Center).
In addition to the medical school, the education building will house Wake Forest’s business school program, a new school of professional studies, and the Carolinas University of Health Sciences, which trains nurses and other health care professionals.
The two buildings are connected on the second floor by a viaduct, providing an additional physical link between teaching and research.
The first phase of The Pearl includes two buildings, scheduled to open in June 2025. Credit: Michelle Crouch/NCHN
Future phases of the project will require the construction of more research buildings, hotels, apartment complexes, and street shops.
The Ledger/NC Health News recently toured the construction site with Atrium and Wexford representatives and spoke by phone with Wake Forest University’s medical director.
Here are some of the big and small things you need to know about The Pearl Innovation District and the new medical school.
6 facts about The Pearl
1. Positioning North Carolina as a hub for life sciences
When Charlotte Deputy City Manager Tracy Dodson tells people about The Pearl, she said people often assume she’s talking about the medical school. She quickly tells them, “It’s so much more than that.”
When she first heard about the project five years ago, she, too, didn’t fully understand its potential impact, she said.
Dodson, who oversees economic development for the city, said: “How quickly they’ve transformed this space, and how much more is actually going to happen…This is something we’ve seen here in recent decades. It’s the most transformative thing that’s ever happened to me.”
He said The Pearl, along with the similar Wexford Innovation District in Winston-Salem and Research Triangle Park in Raleigh, is paving the way for North Carolina to become a major life sciences hub.
2. Space is filling up fast and floors are being added
Colin Lane, enterprise senior vice president of facilities management for Atrium’s parent company, Advocate Health, said strong demand led developers to expand plans for the research and education buildings by two floors each. It is said that
He said the research building, scheduled to open in June, is already 70 to 85 percent leased.
The anchor tenant is IRCAD, a French surgical training institute that is establishing a four-story North American headquarters.
The institute is expected to bring thousands of surgeons to Charlotte each year to learn new surgical techniques, test and improve surgical instruments, or develop new ones.
Dodson said several other tenants have signed on, with announcements expected in the coming months.
Lane described IRCAD as a “super magnet” that attracts businesses, physicians and innovators. He said this will help position Charlotte as the “center of the medical device industry.”
3. “Surgical Ballroom” for practical training
The “surgical ballroom” at IRCAD’s Charlotte facility will be similar to the one at its French location. Credit: IRCAD France
Instead of a traditional “operating room” where students learn new techniques while observing a single surgery from above, IRCAD surgeons train in a so-called “surgical ballroom.”
It’s a huge open space with 26 training stations (accommodating up to 45 people). Each station is a fully equipped operating room with surgical tools, image processing, and patient simulation, allowing physicians to practice a variety of advanced surgical techniques simultaneously.
4. Plug-and-play space for healthcare startups
The 35,000 square feet of space within the research building is dedicated to Connect Labs, which provides pre-built, pre-built biotechnology companies that need access to specialized equipment without the high cost of building their own facilities. Provides laboratory and office space.
This is part of a plan to create a collaborative environment where startups can collaborate and innovate with renowned researchers, students and clinicians, helping to accelerate discovery, Lane said.
5. A Tribute to Brooklyn
The Pearl is taking shape in the former Brooklyn neighborhood that was home to Charlotte’s largest black community until it was destroyed by urban renewal in the 1960s.
The boardwalk connects The Pearl to Pearl Street Park, Charlotte’s first African-American park and serves as a walking history museum. Three works of art from the local minority art community will be on display, Lane said, as well as signs with QR codes that share Brooklyn’s history.
Near the entrance to both buildings, there will be an outdoor plaza called “Jacob’s Ladder” that will provide space for community gatherings and small events. Lane said the plaza’s name and design honor Brooklyn’s public schools for black children and symbolize The Pearl’s commitment to upward mobility.
6. STEM lab for lower grades
Pearl includes a STEM lab designed to get young students interested in careers in science, technology, education, and medicine.
Atrium Health is working with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and other education partners to develop the program and build a hands-on curriculum, Lane said. The plan is to offer free learning opportunities to middle school students year-round, and eventually expand to high school students.
Students and teachers have the opportunity to take turns in the lab for field trips, workshops, and special programs.
6 facts about the new medical school
7. Record number of medical school applicants
Applications to Wake Forest University School of Medicine have already surpassed last year’s record of 12,100 and are still coming in, said Dr. Roy Strode, the school’s associate dean for undergraduate medical education.
“This will put Wake University in the top five to 10 schools of most interest,” he said.
Strode said it’s hard to know how much life the new campus will bring. Information about the campus, school, and growth is being spread. ”
Strode said the students applied to Wake Forest University School of Medicine rather than a specific campus, but will be able to indicate their preferred campus later in the process.
8. Anatomy without a cadaver
New medical students won’t be working with cadavers, Strode said. Instead, they will use virtual tools like giant iPads to study human anatomy and how disease affects the body, Stroud said.
Students can rotate body parts, zoom in, and peel back layers of the human body to learn about different systems and structures. Also, anatomy training is integrated into the entire curriculum rather than in a stand-alone class.
They also use plastination specimens, which are real human body parts (similar to the Body Worlds exhibit) preserved in plastic resin. The body will continue to be used at the school’s Winston-Salem campus.
9. Problem-based learning approach
Unlike traditional medical school, which typically begins by focusing on the body’s systems and their functions, students at Wake’s Charlotte campus will begin each week with a specific patient case, Strode said. Students will then learn about bodies while solving cases, he explained.
For example, in the case of heart failure, symptoms such as shortness of breath and swelling of the legs appear, so diagnosis is made by understanding the function of the heart.
The Winston-Salem campus will continue its traditional approach and give Wake the ability to meet the needs of different types of learners, he said.
“We want to be a medical school for all learners,” he said. “With these two campuses and two different approaches, we can tailor it to a broader group. Students still learn the same things, take the same tests, and achieve the same goals, but it takes a lot more time to get there. The way you do it is a little different.”
10. Much of the education is done by practicing physicians.
The Charlotte campus has a core group of about eight full-time medical educators who will develop and teach the curriculum, Strode said.
Additionally, Wake University is in the process of hiring 30 to 40 practicing physicians from the Charlotte area to teach at the new campus. These doctors are scheduled to begin training in spring 2025.
During their final two years, students collaborate with as many as 1,000 physicians in the Charlotte area on rotations and clinical assignments. (Note: Students at the Winston-Salem campus are already doing this in Charlotte).
“The doctors who see patients in Charlotte are also mentors and mentors to our students,” Strode said. “This is how we as a school integrate our students into the community, right? So they can make connections with those doctors and patients.”
11. Future documents to connect with the community
New students at Wake Forest University Charlotte School of Medicine are expected to learn about and actively participate in volunteering in the city at a half-day community engagement fair at the beginning of their first semester, Strode said. .
In addition, up to half of the school’s students will participate in the school’s Service Learning Scholars Program. The program is a certificate program in which students typically complete 120 to 160 hours of service over a four-year period.
Strode said community activities not only enrich their learning, but also strengthen their ties to the community, making them more likely to reside and possibly remain in North Carolina for long-term practice. said.
12. Mock operating room, delivery room, delivery room
The teaching building has more than 30 classrooms and research spaces, designed to accommodate 12 to 250 students and can be shared between different programs.
Much of the learning will take place in high-tech simulation rooms that mimic real-world medical environments, Lane said. These include mock operating rooms, delivery rooms, trauma rooms, outpatient clinics, and more.
There is also a mock apartment where students can practice managing home care.
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