Nearly a decade in the making, Fort Worth is preparing for the dedication this week of a new medical school building.
By creating a local pipeline for physicians, the Burnett School of Medicine will help to alleviate the ongoing shortage of medical personnel that has struck the city as well as the North Texas region.
“We are in a significant physician shortage, and it’s getting worse,” Dr. Stuart Flynn, the school’s founding dean, explained last year, according to the Fort Worth Report.
“With Fort Worth being one of the fastest-growing cities in the country, we need more physicians,” Flynn said. “We view that as one of our missions to be a significant player in trying to solve something that’s very hard to solve. If everyone just ignores it, it’s certainly not going to get solved”
The school was named after the late Anne Burnett Marion after The Burnett Foundation contributed $25 million to support the school.
The Fort Worth Report details what the new school has to offer. Here’s the start of the story:
Every time TCU President Daniel W. Pullin walks through the doors of the Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine building on West Rosedale Street, there is one word that comes to mind: pride.
After all, the medical campus has been years in the making.
The Burnett School of Medicine at TCU opened its doors to faculty and students nearly two months ago ahead of the fall semester. Now, the university is preparing to officially welcome the public for a dedication ceremony Sept. 24.
“I feel a lot of pride in what we have been able to do as a collective community, not just TCU,” Pullin said. “It’s been quite the journey, but an incredible success story at every turn.”
Ahead of the event, the Fort Worth Report got an early look inside the Burnett School of Medicine building to learn more about the medical school’s features and how it is prepared to reshape Tarrant County.
Before the Burnett School of Medicine welcomed its first class in 2019, the medical school was intended to be a public-private partnership between TCU and the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth.