Change is coming in the field of medicine along the Gulf Coast.
Xavier University of Louisiana, an historically Black university (or HBCU) in New Orleans and top graduator of Black students who pursue medical degrees and doctorates in the health sciences, is partnering with Ochsner Health, the area’s leading medical training center, to open Xavier Ochsner College of Medicine (XOCOM).
Dr. Leonardo Seoane, executive vice president and chief academic officer of Ochsner Health, and first appointed dean of XOCOM.
“This building will be a beacon of hope for Black and Brown young kids throughout the region, where they can see physicians who look like them,” said Dr. Leonardo Seoane, executive vice president and chief academic officer of Ochsner Health, and first appointed dean of XOCOM. “If they can do it, I can do it, too. This can be me.”
XOCOM will join the four current HBCU Medical Schools at Howard University, Morehouse School of Medicine, Meharry Medical College, and the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science. Morgan State University has plans to open an osteopathic medical school in 2025.
Xavier and Ochsner, who first collaborated in the 1980s at Xavier’s College of Pharmacy, began serious planning for the creation of a medical school as early as 2016, but the COVID-19 pandemic put those plans on pause. The pandemic made it clearer why a regional HBCU medical school was so critically needed, said Xavier President Dr. C. Reynold Verret.
“If you want to think about the thesis that trust and lack thereof is the underlying factor in health inequities and disparities, COVID was an unplanned experiment where trust in the medical system became a barrier to quality care,” said Verret, adding that this mistrust came from years of abuse and flagrant experimentation on the Black community, like the Tuskegee Syphilis Study or the infamous tale of Henrietta Lacks, and from politicized misinformation.
