College of Medicine’s Knoxville Campus Embraces New Name in Line with Academic Expansion

The College of Medicine - Knoxville has expanded its undergraduate medical education mission in recent years, allowing more medical students, such as the two pictured here in green and orange scrubs, to complete their training on the campus.

For the last several years, the University of Tennessee Health Science Center's medical campus in Knoxville operated with a name it had outgrown, according to the campus's dean. On October 1, that changed.

Now officially the College of Medicine - Knoxville, the campus has stepped into a new identity that reflects its expanding role in undergraduate medical education as it grows to meet the needs of the statewide academic system.

The previous name, UT Graduate School of Medicine, reflected a historic focus on graduate medical education (GME), training residents and fellows. But as its undergraduate medical education (UME, training medical students) and research footprint grew, so did the need for a name that matched its evolving mission.

"Although training residents and fellows will always be core to our campus mission, we have significantly expanded our role within the statewide UT Health Science Center system," says Robert M. Craft, MD, dean of the Knoxville campus. "Training medical students and doing groundbreaking research are increasingly important aspects of our mission. We are clearly now a College of Medicine."

The College of Medicine - Knoxville, shortened to COM-Knoxville, joins its counterparts in Memphis, Chattanooga, and Nashville to form the college's statewide network of medical education. The updated name reinforces Knoxville's expanded role in education and brings it into alignment with the naming conventions of the College of Medicine - Chattanooga, which was referred to as simply the Chattanooga Unit until approximately 15 to 20 years ago, and the College of Medicine - Nashville. According to Michael Hocker, MD, executive dean for the College of Medicine, who oversees all the college's campuses, this consistency strengthens the connection between all campuses and aligns them more clearly with UT Health Science Center's broader mission to serve communities across Tennessee.

The Knoxville campus's former name dates to the 1990s, when University Health Systems began operating UT Medical Center - where the campus is housed - in concert with the college's education and research missions. "'Graduate School of Medicine' was chosen because GME was the majority of our academic mission at the time. Our campus mission is now much broader," Dr. Craft says.

"Training medical students and doing groundbreaking research are increasingly important aspects of our mission. We are clearly now a College of Medicine."

Dean Robert Craft

The dean credits UT System President Randy Boyd's "Be One UT" initiative and the leadership of Chancellor Peter Buckley, MD, for helping drive the change. "There was a change in vision by both the president of the university and by the chancellor of the Health Science Center to get the entire university system working together," Dr. Craft says. "We are moving away from functioning in silos and moving toward leveraging each campus's strength and best practices, growing together, and collaborating in tangible ways."

That collaboration is already visible in the Knoxville campus's growing clinical footprint. Grounded by its affiliation with the 710-bed UT Medical Center and complemented by new partnerships, including one with East Tennessee Children's Hospital, the campus now has a similar clinical capacity to the partner hospitals adjacent to the Memphis campus: Regional One Health, Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, Le Bonheur Children's Hospital, and the Lt. Col. Luke Weathers, Jr. VA Medical Center.

COM-Knoxville's UME offerings have also expanded dramatically. Since 2012, students from the College of Medicine have been able to complete their third and fourth years entirely in Knoxville. The campus now hosts around 60 medical students at any given time, alongside 290 residents and fellows. Dr. Craft says that combination is beneficial for both medical students and graduate trainees.

"Integrating medical student training alongside residents and fellows in an academic medical center is optimal," he says. "There's a lot to be gained by the students from the residents' perspectives, and the residents become teachers, which helps them solidify their own knowledge base. We often learn particularly effectively from people who are just up the experience ladder from us, so that's another advantage from medical students learning with residents."

Students at the College of Medicine - Knoxville learn from residents and fellows in addition to attending physicians while caring for patients as a team.

Dr. Craft says the Knoxville campus is growing by "leaps and bounds, in every way." In addition to larger medical student class sizes, COM-Knoxville has laid the foundation for 25% growth of its GME programs from 2022 to 2027, and it is already halfway toward that goal. This growth, Dr. Craft says, is vital for the state.

According to Executive Dean Hocker, Tennessee needs additional physicians, and the state is projected to have a deficit of 6,000 physicians by 2030. "The College of Medicine and each of its campuses must be integral in ensuring that the state has enough physicians who can provide high-quality care to patients throughout the state," he says.

The College of Medicine - Chattanooga is also increasing the number of physicians it produces. The campus is on track to expand its resident and fellow cohorts by 20% over three years. With 219 currently training in partnership with clinical partner Erlanger, the campus has already achieved 12% of that growth. Additionally, the number of third- and fourth-year medical students completing all their clinical training in Chattanooga increased this year to 24, up from a historical average of six to 10 annually. A total of more than 100 UT Health Science Center students rotate through the campus each year.

The College of Medicine - Nashville is experiencing growth as well. What began with one residency program in partnership with Ascension Saint Thomas roughly 10 years ago has blossomed with residency and fellowship program growth across multiple specialties, research collaborations, and rural care initiatives. The college is poised for future growth to serve the people of Middle Tennessee.

"With the name change in Knoxville, we're reinforcing the fact that medical education in Tennessee is a team effort," Executive Dean Hocker says. "This alignment connects our Knoxville campus even more closely with our colleagues in Memphis, Nashville, and Chattanooga. It opens the door to new opportunities for collaboration and helps us serve our learners and communities with even greater strength."