The Wharton Health Care Management Department (HCM) and Meharry Medical College have launched a new joined MD/PhD program that enables a student to pursue an MD degree at Meharry and a PhD at Penn.
Cynthia Chude GRW26, the first Escarce-Kington Scholar in the new Wharton Health Care Management and Meharry Medical College Joined MD/PhD Program, has begun classes and also become an LDI Associate Fellow. Currently a third-year medical student at Meharry, Chude takes a leave of absence to pursue her five-year doctoral studies at the Wharton School.
“HCM’s work with Meharry is a labor of love, built on mutual respect, and a shared vision,” said Guy David, PhD, LDI Senior Fellow, Wharton Professor, and Chair of the Department who is also an LDI Senior Fellow. “We are thrilled to have Cynthia Chude join us this year, as the first student in what we hope will be a long and successful line of MD/PhD scholars and future leaders.”
“Meharry is focused on expanding the presence and influence of underrepresented minorities to improve the country’s health care system,” said A. Dexter Samuels, PhD, MHA, Senior Vice President and Director of the Center for Health Policy at Meharry Medical College. “We are as proud as we are excited about this new collaboration with The Wharton School that allows both institutions to advance health equity.”
The Wharton Health Care Management Department (HCM) is the oldest one of its kind in the country, providing comprehensive education in all areas of health care management and policy. Launched in 1985, its doctoral program is famed for producing health care management and economics alumni who have become internationally renowned scholars.
Meharry Medical College, located in Nashville, TN, was established in 1867 as the country’s first medical school for African Americans. One hundred and forty-five years later, it remains the largest historically Black institution dedicated to the education of health care professionals and scientists.
LDI Senior Fellow and Coordinator of the Wharton Health Care Management Doctoral Program and the Wharton/Meharry MD/PhD initiative Claudio Lucarelli GR06 noted that “Wharton and our Health Care Management Department have been committed to, and have been promoting diversity in academia for a long time. For example, the Penn LDI-Wharton Summer Undergraduate Minority Research (SUMR) program was basically born in the Department more than 20 years ago.”
“This new partnership with Meharry is a continuation of that same kind of effort at a higher academic level,” continued Lucarelli. “The goal is ultimately to increase the number of health service research scholars from underrepresented communities who bring broader racial and ethnic perspectives to the work that underpins so much of today’s health care delivery policy.”
“Cynthia Chude is such a great fit for us,” Lucarelli continued. “She has the talent, drive, and potential that really impressed the entire HCM faculty committee that selected her as this program’s inaugural Escarce-Kington scholar.”
