'The plan is to grow:' Nashville's Meharry Medical College enlists new dean amid challenges

Dr. Sonja Harris-Haywood, an unassuming professional woman wearing a post-surgery medical boot, was recently making her way through the Cal Turner Family Center for Student Education on the Meharry Medical College campus in Nashville when she saw two students leaning against a counter next to a coffee maker.

Not one to pass up an opportunity, she engaged.

"I hope you're studying smart," she said. They nodded in the affirmative, though almost dismissively. Harris-Haywood smiled: "I'm the new medical dean, so I'm allowed to ask."

Both young men instantly stood up straight. One wearing a ball cap quickly took it off as a sign of respect. "Yes, ma'am," one said. The three briefly talked about their thoughts on their studies and the school before Harris-Haywood moved on.

There will be many more such conversations with students, she said. But, for now, she's got lots of work to do.

Harris-Haywood was tapped in July to lead the 147-year-old medical college — the first college established in the South to teach Black students medicine — with a daunting mission: Grow enrollment at this historic but struggling institution while improving the lagging satisfaction of its students, who might otherwise choose bigger-name universities.

A New York native, Harris-Haywood was most recently the associate dean of curriculum integration at Northeast Ohio Medical University.

"The plan is to grow. We're going to need to grow to meet the country's needs," Harris-Haywood said. "The growth in medical education is happening anyway; we know that we're going to have a shortage of doctors. And Meharry has to be part of that."

Currently, the college graduates about 100 medical and dental students a year. The school had a total enrollment of 487 last year, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges. While that's less than half or a third of some of the nation's largest programs, it's not the smallest program in Tennessee and is comparable to Vanderbilt University Medical School's enrollment numbers.

Meharry's president and CEO, James Hildreth, said he'd like to see the school eventually double its enrollment. However, he notes that it would require money for the school, faculty and hospital training slots the school currently doesn't have access to.

Hildreth, who was part of the search committee that selected Harris-Haywood, said he wanted someone who could work toward those goals while focusing on the immediate needs of student development.

Meharry's program accreditation status was placed on probation last fall by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, in part because of a shortage of faculty and student services. It remains on probation for the time being, according to the accrediting body.

Related coverage: Meharry Medical College degree program placed on probation for 'notable areas of concern'

"So, I needed someone who could both be visionary on the one hand and be attentive to the immediate needs we're dealing with, the challenges we're facing. She fits that bill perfectly," Hildreth said. "I also wanted somebody who could be focused on student outcomes. Because, at the end of the day, our success as a medical school is determined by how well our students do when they leave us."

Challenges ahead

Hildreth said Meharry, like many medical schools, struggles to find and retain faculty. The school also has a shortage of needed equipment, such as anatomy tables, he said.

And, despite the fact that Nashville's largest industry is health care, there aren't enough available clinical training slots available for Meharry students in this city.

These training programs, reserved for the last two years of medical education, allow students to get trained by medical residents and physicians in real-world settings. Because of the lack of local openings, the school has to send students to clinical affiliates in seven different states, he said.

In addition to all of these issues, a recent survey of Meharry students found that many had concerns about the lack of resources, Hildreth said. This includes basic services, like adequate Wi-Fi and study spaces on campus, he said, though many of these problems are being addressed, he added.

"And I think they acknowledged that, overall, the program is strong as evidenced by the fact that by the most objective thing I can offer you, which is on Match Day (the day when students find out if they were accepted into medical residency programs), 97% of the students got their first or second choice," Hildreth said. "But we're not resting on that. We have to keep improving. And we have a new dean who can help us do just that."

Encouraging diversity

Given Meharry's history, a big part of college's mission has been to train a diverse population of medical professionals.

Before serving as associate dean at Northeast Ohio Medical University, Harris-Haywood worked to recruit, educate and retain minority doctors to practice in underserved communities. In this position, she was able to bring in more diverse practitioners throughout Cleveland, Meharry officials said.

"She was able to create a really innovative program," said Dr. Jeannette South-Paul, executive vice president and provost of the college. "She'd basically built a pipeline and then crafted an educational program for those undergraduate students so they were adequately prepared."

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this summer that race-based college admissions are unconstitutional. South-Paul said race is not a deciding factor in Meharry admissions, despite its status as a historically Black college. Rather, it looks for students who embrace its mission of promoting health equity. Though part of that is certainly training a diverse health care work force, Harris-Haywood said.

"Data has shown that diversity of thought, as well as diversity of race and ethnicity and gender is important because it has a huge impact on health care access and health care delivery," she said. "People by nature tend to trust people that they have some similarities with."

Harris-Haywood earned a master’s degree in science education from New York University in 1992 and a master’s degree in clinical investigation from Case Western Reserve University in 2015. She earned a medical degree from New Jersey Medical School in 1997 and completed a family medicine residency at Mountainside Family Medicine in Montclair, New Jersey.

She is married and has three children. She said she plans to reside in East Nashville.

Frank Gluck is the health care reporter for The Tennessean. He can be reached at fgluck@tennessean.com. Follow him on Twitter at @FrankGluck.

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This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville's Meharry Medical College hires new dean, looks 'to grow'