Recruitment will begin in the coming weeks for the inaugural class of medical students at Xavier Ochsner College of Medicine as the new Historically Black College and University (HBCU) medical school is set to open in August. The College of Medicine officially received its preliminary accreditation from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) on October 14. The new accreditation makes the New Orleans-based Xavier Ochsner College of Medicine the first HBCU medical school to open in five decades — and the only one located in the Gulf South region.
“This is a historic moment for Xavier University of Louisiana, for New Orleans and for the future of medicine in this nation,” said Reynold Verret, Ph.D., president of Xavier University of Louisiana, in a press release. “For a century, Xavier has demonstrated what is possible when academic excellence is joined with a profound commitment to human dignity and service. The Xavier Ochsner College of Medicine is a bold extension of that legacy. We are not simply opening the doors of a new medical school; we are expanding who will have the opportunity to become a physician, strengthening the communities those physicians will serve and helping to shape the future of healthcare for generations to come.”
Xavier University of Louisiana, a top HCBU for sending Black students to medical school, and Ochsner Health, named the Best Hospital in Louisiana and the No. 1 hospital in the New Orleans metro area for the 15th year in a row, created this partnership in 2024. The College of Medicine, located in downtown New Orleans, will be an allopathic medical school.
The collaboration comes at a time when, across the U.S. — particularly in New Orleans and Gulf South areas — there is a staggering predicted shortage of physicians. According to the National Health Resources and Services Administration and the Cicero Institute, the U.S. is projected to face shortages of 120,000 physicians by 2030, and over 140,000 physicians by 2038. Of Louisiana’s 64 parishes, 60 are named health professional shortage areas, or HPSAs.
This shortage hits hardest for Black communities, as, despite making up 14 percent of the U.S. population, only 6 percent of doctors in the U.S. are Black. Meanwhile, HBCU medical schools, of which there are only four others in the country, train nearly 70 percent of the country’s Black physicians. The last HBCU medical school to open was the Morehouse School of Medicine in 1975.
Access to Black physicians has been shown to improve both mortality and life expectancy among Black patients, according to a 2023 report from JAMA Network Open. A critical strategy for increasing racial health equity and improving the delivery of clinical care among minorities is to increase “the number of physicians who are racial and ethnic minority individuals,” the report stated.
In 2024, Valerie Montgomery Rice, MD, FACOG, president and CEO of Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia, told CBS News that increasing the number of Black doctors is important.
“Having a healthcare professional is important in the community, but also having a Black healthcare professional raises all the boats,” Dr. Rice said. “First of all, it’s going to allow us to educate and train more Black and Brown physicians, and it’s going to allow those students to have more choice in where they want to practice and to be less burdened with debt.”
Leonardo Seoane, M.D., FACP, is the president and founding dean of the Xavier Ochsner College of Medicine. In the press release, Dr. Seoane emphasized the importance of a college of medicine that prepares future physicians to “be prepared to pursue excellence with purpose, embrace innovation, and respond to the evolving needs of patients and our communities.”
“This milestone builds on Xavier University of Louisiana’s incredible legacy of preparing leaders who serve and a history of academic and clinical excellence at Ochsner Health,” Seoane said. “By bringing together the strengths of two mission-driven institutions, we are creating opportunities for future physicians to make a lasting difference across Louisiana and beyond.”
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