Macon Magazine

54 maconmagazine.com | April/May 2025 ABOVE A childhood photo of Dr. Rice, who grew up in Macon. and train people matters," emphasized Montgomery Rice. The founding of Morehouse School of Medicine in 1975 aimed to change that, by focusing on educating and training minority physicians. Dr. Louis Brown was one of those rare Black physicians in Georgia in the late 1960s, and he started to float the idea of creating a new medical school. Funding from the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation led to a feasibility study that the Georgia Board for Physician Workforce used as evidence for the school's mission. "A place like Morehouse School of Medicine has a significant impact, because of how we recruit and retain students who go back and practice in those underserved communities," said Montgomery Rice. She mentioned that a Georgia high school student who goes to MSM is likely to stay in the state of Georgia, even more so if they do their residency training in the state. "Connectivity matters. Cultural identity matters." "We are not being appre ciative of the diversity and the complexity of the problems that we are being faced in healthcare, and how critical it is that we have diverse thinkers and people who have different perspectives and different distances to get to that table," said Montgomery Rice. "If they can bring those life experiences to the table... then the richness of the solutions are going to be more applicable to a broader set of people." "It takes all of us in order to solve the complex problems that we are now facing in healthcare." Keeping doctors in the state can make a major impact on underserved communities, argues Montgomery Rice. This is especially true in Georgia, where rural communities are often healthcare deserts, many of which are considered part of the Black Belt. She argues health equity can make a difference throughout a population: "If a primary care provider goes into a county, within two years, they are " I ' v e a l w a y s b e l i e v e d t h a t I h a d t h e r i g h t t o s i t a t t h e t a b l e . " "We were founded to diversify the healthcare workforce, increase access, and work toward the elimination of health disparities. There's no doubt about that," she said. Achieving health justice The mission of MSM is clear, and more relevant than ever. Before MSM was founded in 1975, the American Association of Medical Colleges reported in 1970 that across the country, only 2.2% of physicians were Black, despite Black people making up 12% of the U.S. population at the time. In Georgia, it was bleaker. Despite the Black population making up double the share of people in the state than the national average, there were just 93 Black physicians at the time, according to Montgomery Rice. Despite making up such a small share of Georgia's doctors, they were caring for the vast majority of the Black population. "Who we educate and train, and how we educate

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