Standing in front of the soon-to-be completed, state-of-the-art Methodist University Cape Fear Valley Health School of Medicine building on Oct. 17, Methodist University President Stanley T. Wearden, Ph.D., shared that the proposed new school of medicine has received the official accreditation approval necessary to begin its recruitment of its inaugural class of students for the summer of 2026.

“Today marks a truly transformational milestone,” Wearden said to a crowd of medical professionals, key partners, media from around the state and SOM faculty and staff. “This accomplishment is the result of years of dedication, planning, and collaboration… With preliminary accreditation in hand, we now begin the exciting work of recruiting our charter class – students who will one day transform healthcare throughout Southeastern North Carolina.”

The accreditation designation from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) – the accrediting body for all U.S. and Canadian MD-granting medical schools – represents a significant achievement for Methodist University, in partnership with Cape Fear Valley Health, and positions the school as only the fifth MD medical school in North Carolina and the first new MD school in N.C. in four decades that isn’t tied to an existing institution.

“The medical school strengthens our identity as a true Academic Health System, a place where patient care, teaching and discovery all come together under one health system,” said Michael Nagowski, CEO of Cape Fear Valley Health System. “We're not just building a medical school, we're building the future of health care. ”

This moment is truly a celebration as a win for the city, region, state and nation, as it is the “greenlight” to recruit students for a medical school that brings new opportunities for aspiring physicians, innovative academic research and a long-term pipeline of doctors trained to serve.

“The next steps are: in the next two weeks, we'll open up our admissions process, and students will begin applying for seats in our charter class, which begins July 20, 2026,”  said Dr. Hershey Bell, the founding dean of the SOM. “We're still working on developing the curriculum. We are still recruiting more and more faculty and staff members. We've already hired 50 people for the medical school alone. That's 50 new jobs in this community that weren't here before. We also start working on the next phase of accreditation. So accreditation has three phases, preliminary, you get to open. Provisional is based on how the students do in their first two years, and then you get full accreditation when you graduate your first class.” 

Future students will apply through MCAS, a medical school application for everyone in the U.S. Dr. Bell shared that they anticipate between 2,000-3,000 applications for the first class of 64 students. Curriculum is still being developed.

“We're working with physicians at Cape Fear Valley Health, our own faculty and faculty from Methodist University, the curriculum is already almost complete, and we're going to start beta testing it early in 2026. The curriculum is a novel curriculum that has students from day one thinking like physicians think. So they will be problem solving, using diagnostic dilemmas to help understand how all the foundational sciences, clinical sciences and health system sciences [and] how people actually interact with healthcare systems, how all that comes together,” shared Bell.

The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) has reported that when students go to medical school and complete their residency in one area, there’s a 70% chance they stay in that area to practice. An Economic Impact Study – by Michael Walden from N.C. State University – shows the SOM will increase annual spending in the area by $72M and create nearly 850 news jobs (not including those from expected new industries and employers).

This accreditation and the founding of the new medical school is a win for Methodist University as a whole. University leadership anticipate this milestone achievement will generate greater interest in other focuses within the institution as well. 

“This is going to have a halo effect that will be beneficial for everything else we do at Methodist University, for all of our programs, because this changes the nature of who we are. We're now a university that has a medical school, and that's a big, big thing, and that brings a lot of attention nationally, regionally, etc, and it generates interest. Students want to go to schools like that. Yeah, they see those as quality schools. And we've known for a long time we're a quality school. This kind of puts the stamp on it,” shared Wearden.

For several years, Methodist University has had some of the region’s top academic programs in Health Sciences & Human Services and maintains departments that include: Health Care Administration, Kinesiology, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy, Physician Assistant Studies; the School of Nursing; Social Work and Clinical Mental Health Counseling.

“We're going to take a really strong interprofessional approach with this, where we make sure that the medical students are also working with the PA students, the physical therapy students, occupational therapy, nursing, etc. One of the issues in medicine for a long time is professionals not talking to each other, and so we're going to model that with the way we educate our students,” added Wearden. 

More information about the Methodist University Cape Fear Valley Health School of Medicine, which has received tremendous support from the Golden LEAF Foundation and other corporate and individual donors, can be found at methodist.edu/medicine.