Morehouse School of Medicine recognizes that its mission -- to recruit and train minority and other students as physicians, biomedical scientists, and public health professionals committed to the primary healthcare needs of the underserved – cannot be realized in an “ivory tower” setting. For this reason, we have reached out to the community in each area of academic endeavor: teaching, research, and service. However, we do not subscribe to the idea of a “community classroom” (which reduces the people who live in the community to the status of props for a teaching program), a “community laboratory” (which reduces the people who live in the community to the status of guinea pigs), or a “needy community” (which denies dignity to the people who live in the community). Rather, in all 3 domains – we create partnerships with the community in order to build programs that benefit both the community and the medical school.

Daniel S. Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.H. Professor and Chairman Department of Community Health and Preventive Medicine Associate