The Alice L. Walton School of Medicine in Bentonville, Ark., is slated to welcome its first class of students to its four-year medical degree program in 2025, pending accreditation.
Walmart heir Alice Walton announced plans to finance and build a nonprofit, independent medical school in 2021. At the time, Ms. Walton said the school intended to forge a "reimagination of American medical education."
Five things to know about the medical school:
1. The school's curriculum will expand on evidence-based teaching methods, incorporating training in whole-person health, humanities, integrative health approaches, research and advanced technologies. Training will also emphasize diversity, equity and inclusion; interprofessional collaboration; mental health; social determinants of health and self care for patients, students and staff.
2. Walton Medical School has spent the past two years building its faculty and leadership team. Most recently, the medical school tapped Yolangel Hernandez Suarez, MD, to serve as executive vice dean. Last year, Walton Medical School selected Sharmila Makhija, MD, as its founding dean and CEO. In late 2022, it also appointed a nine-member board. The school continues to hire for various faculty and leadership roles.
3. Construction on the school's 154,000 medical education facility in Bentonville began in March 2023. The four-story building sits on 14 acres and will include learning halls, a public gallery, library, clinical teaching spaces, a student lounge, healing gardens, outdoor classrooms and theater, among other features.
4. Walton Medical School is currently undergoing a multi-year accreditation process. In October 2023, it earned candidate status by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, clearing the way for the school to see preliminary accreditation.
5. Though the school has yet to formally launch training, several other programs are seemingly following in its footsteps, overhauling their curriculum to better equip students to meet the evolving demands of modern healthcare. The University of Colorado School of Medicine in Aurora is the first in the nation to fully transition to an education model in which students learn multiple specialties at once. Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City has also reimagined its curriculum to focus on early research involvement, long-lasting mentorship and topics such as leadership and social justice.