FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                                                          

January 5, 2009  

CONTACTS:

Janet M. Caldwell

615.500.0632

Stacey Nickens

615.775.8601

Meharry Medical College President Meets with Obama-Biden Healthcare Transition Team   

Agenda emphasized need to restore NIH funding and expand Title VII Health Professions training programs

(Nashville, Tenn.) -- President and CEO of Meharry Medical College, Wayne J. Riley, M.D., M.B.A. and a delegation of leaders from the nation’s historically black academic health centers were called to Washington, D.C., today for a meeting with the Obama-Biden Healthcare Transition Team.

The agenda focused on highlighting the need to expand Title VII Health Professions training programs like the Centers of Excellence (COE) and Health Careers Opportunity Program (HCOP).

Dr. Riley was specifically tasked by the group to address the NIH budget for minority serving institutions and to express the need for President-Elect Obama to restore funding – which has been cut over the past few years - to the National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) within NIH and to fully fund the NIH’s Office of Minority and Health Disparities Research. Both of Meharry’s key research centers – the Center for Women’s Health Research and the Center for AIDS Health Disparities Research have received funding from NCRR.

“We are hopeful that the Obama-Biden Healthcare Transition Team is on course with restoring the vital funding that has been lost over the past several years. Minority serving academic health centers are more relevant today than ever before because of the changing demographic of this country and because of the evidence-based health disparities that exist among our populations,” said Dr. Riley, adding that the delegation is “encouraged by the approach that the new administration is taking.”

Key members of the delegation included Dr. Louis W. Sullivan, former Secretary of Health and Human Services and President Emeritus of Morehouse School of Medicine; Dr. Susan Kelly, President of Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science; and Dr. John Maupin, President of Morehouse School of Medicine. The delegation described the significant contributions made by minority serving academic health centers toward diversifying the nation’s healthcare workforce; it addressed the need for increased support of research and programs dedicated to addressing health disparities; and it highlighted the need to support safety net hospitals like Nashville General Hospital at Meharry.

About Meharry Medical College

Meharry Medical College, a United Methodist Church affiliated school, is the nation’s largest private, independent, historically black academic health center dedicated solely to educating minority and other health professionals. Diverse Issues in Higher Education’s ranking of institutions annually lists Meharry as a leading national educator of African Americans with M.D. and D.D.S. degrees, and Ph.D. degrees in the biomedical sciences. The School of Dentistry is one of two dental programs in Tennessee, the only historically black dental school in Tennessee and one of 56 dental programs in the United States.

###