More than medical school

By Michelle Crouch

Published with The Charlotte Ledger

For years, Charlotte has been the largest city in the U.S. without a four-year medical school. If all goes according to plan, that 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 arriving in August. Class size is expected to increase to 100 students in the next five years.

The campus will ultimately enable Wake Forest University School of Medicine to graduate approximately 245 physicians annually at its Winston-Salem and Charlotte campuses, with the goal of helping alleviate the state’s health care worker shortage.

But the Charlotte medical school campus is just one piece of a larger transformation underway at the 20-acre site known as The Pearl in Charlotte’s Midtown/Dilworth neighborhood, just outside of downtown.

The Pearl is intended to be a vibrant medical innovation district — the “Silicon Valley of healthcare” — designed to attract not only students, but also researchers, technology start-ups and biomedical companies.

Atrium Health and Wexford Science & Technology are driving $1.5 billion in growth. The first phase includes two buildings: a 10-story research building (Research Building 1) and a 14-story education center (Howard R. Levine Education Center).

In addition to the medical school, the education building will house programs from the Wake Forest School of Business, the new School of Professional Studies, and the Carolinas College of Health Science, which educates nurses and other health care professionals.

The two buildings are connected on the second floor by an elevated bridge, providing a physical connection between education and research.

Future phases of the project call for more research buildings, a hotel, multifamily buildings and street-level retail.

The Ledger/NC Health News recently visited the construction site with representatives from Atrium and Wexford and spoke by phone with the dean of Wake Forest University School of Medicine.

Here are some big and small things to know about the Pearl Innovation District and the new medical school:

Six facts about Pearl

1. Positioning North Carolina as a life sciences center

When Tracy Dodson, Charlotte’s assistant city manager, talks to people about the Pearl, she said they often assume she means the medical school. He quickly replies to them that “it’s much more than that.”

She said that when she first heard about the project five years ago, she, too, didn’t fully realize its potential impact.

“How quickly they’ve transformed this space and how much more there really is to come … it’s the most transformative thing we’ve seen here in decades,” said Dodson, who oversees the city’s economic development.

She said The Pearl – along with the similar Wexford Innovation District in Winston-Salem and Research Triangle Park in Raleigh – are paving the way for North Carolina to become a leading life sciences center.

2. Space is filling up quickly, more floors have been added

Strong demand has prompted developers to expand plans for research and education buildings by two stories each, said Collin Lane, senior vice president of facilities management at Atrium’s parent company, Advocate Health.

The research building, scheduled to open in June, is already 70-85 percent leased, he added.

The anchor tenant is IRCAD, a French surgical training institute whose North American headquarters occupies four floors.

The institute is expected to attract thousands of surgeons to Charlotte each year to learn new surgical techniques, test and refine surgical devices or develop new ones.

Dodson said several other tenants have signed and will be announced in the coming months.

Lane described IRCAD as a “super magnet” for companies, physicians and innovators. He said it will help position Charlotte as the “epicenter of the medical device industry.”

3. “Surgical ballroom” for practical exercises

Instead of a traditional “operating room,” where students learn a new technique by observing a single operation from above, IRCAD surgeons will train in what’s called a “surgical ballroom.”

It is a large open space with 26 training stations (and the ability to accommodate up to 45). Each station is a fully equipped operating room with surgical instruments, imaging and patient simulations, allowing doctors to practice a variety of advanced surgical techniques simultaneously.

4. Plug-and-play space for healthcare startups

35,000 square feet of space in the research building is dedicated to Connect Labs, offering turnkey labs and office space for small biotech companies that need access to specialized equipment without the high costs of building their own facilities.

It’s part of a plan to create a collaborative environment where startups can innovate alongside established researchers, students and clinicians, helping accelerate discovery, Lane said.

5. A tribute to the Brooklyn neighborhood

The Pearl Hotel is taking shape in a former Brooklyn neighborhood that was home to Charlotte’s largest black community before it was destroyed by urban renewal in the 1960s.

The walking trail will connect the Pearl Hotel to Pearl Street Park, Charlotte’s first African-American park, and will serve as a walking history museum. It will feature three pieces of art from the local minority art community and signs with QR codes highlighting Brooklyn’s history, Lane said.

Near the entrances to both buildings, an outdoor plaza called “Jacob’s Ladder” will be a place for community meetings and small events. The plaza’s name and design honor a Brooklyn public school that served black children and symbolizes The Pearl’s commitment to upward mobility, Lane said.

6. STEM lab for younger students

Pearl is home to a STEM lab designed to spark younger students’ interest in careers in science, technology, education and medicine.

Lane said Atrium Health is working with Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools and other educational partners to create the program and develop hands-on curriculum. It will provide free, year-round learning opportunities for middle school students, with plans to eventually extend them to high school students as well.

Students and teachers will have the opportunity to move into the lab for field trips, workshops and special programs.

Six facts about the new medical school

7. Record medical school applications

Applications to Wake Forest University School of Medicine have already surpassed last year’s record of 12,100 and are continuing to come in, said Dr. Roy Strowd, the school’s associate dean for undergraduate medical studies.

“This puts Wake among the five to 10 schools with the most interest,” he said.

It’s hard to say how much of the increase is due to the new campus, but Strowd said, “I think there’s a buzz. Word spread about the campus, the school and the development.”

Students applied to Wake Forest University School of Medicine rather than a specific campus, but they will be able to indicate their preferred campus later in the process, Strowd said.

8. Anatomy without cadavers

Strowd said students at the new medical school would not work with cadavers. Instead, they will study human anatomy and the effects of disease on the body using a virtual tool similar to a giant iPad, Strowd said.

Students will be able to rotate body parts, enlarge and peel away layers of the human body to explore different systems and structures. Their anatomy training will be integrated into the curriculum rather than a separate class.

Plastinated specimens will also be used – real parts of the human body fixed with plastic resins (like those at the Body Worlds exhibition). The remains will continue to be used on the school’s campus in Winston-Salem.

9. Problem-based approach to learning

Unlike traditional medical schools, which typically begin by focusing on body systems and their functions, students at Wake’s Charlotte campus begin each week with a specific patient case, Strowd said. He explained that students would then learn about the body as they worked on the case.

For example, if the case involves heart failure, the patient may experience shortness of breath and leg swelling, and students will need to diagnose the condition by gaining knowledge about how the heart functions.

He said the Winston-Salem campus will continue its traditional approach so Wake can meet the needs of different types of students.

“We want to be a medical school for all students,” he said. “Having these two campuses and two different approaches allows us to accommodate this broader group. Students are still learning the same things, taking the same tests, and achieving the same goals, but they get there in slightly different ways.”

10. Practicing physicians do most of the teaching

The Charlotte campus has about eight dedicated medical educators who have developed the curriculum and will teach, Strowd said.

Additionally, Wake is in the process of hiring 30 to 40 practicing physicians from the Charlotte area who will teach at the new campus. These doctors will begin training in spring 2025.

Over the last two years, students will work with as many as 1,000 Charlotte-area physicians during rotations and clinical work. (Note: Students from the Winston-Salem campus already do this in Charlotte).

“The doctors who see patients in Charlotte are also mentors and instructors for these students,” Strowd said. “This is how we, the school, integrate students into the community, right? Students can then develop relationships with these doctors and their patients.”

11. Future documents to connect with the community

New Wake Forest University School of Medicine-Charlotte students will learn about ways to volunteer in the city during a half-day community involvement fair at the beginning of the first semester and will be expected to get involved, Strowd said.

Additionally, up to half of the school’s students are expected to enroll in the school’s Service Learning Scholars program, a certification pathway in which students typically complete 120 to 160 hours of service over four years.

Strowd said community service not only enriches their learning, but strengthens their ties to the region, making it more likely that they will remain in North Carolina for residency and potentially long-term internships.

12. Trial operating rooms, labor and delivery rooms

The education building includes over 30 classrooms and laboratories, designed to accommodate 12 to 250 students and be shared among various programs.

Lane said much of the learning will take place in high-tech simulation rooms that mimic real medical environments. These include mock operating rooms, delivery rooms, trauma rooms and outpatient clinics.

There is even a trial home where students can train in home care.

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