Valerie Montgomery Rice: Leaving a legacy of leadership

Valerie Montgomery Rice with former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. Photo provided by Valerie Montgomery Rice/The Atlanta Voice Rice broke barriers as the first woman leader at two HBCU medical schools, and she’s committed to health equity and training more Black doctors. There are only four Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) medical schools in the United States — Morehouse School of Medicine, Meharry Medical College, Howard University College of Medicine, and Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science. Valerie Montgomery Rice has played a significant role at two of them. She’s not just the sixth president of Morehouse School of Medicine; she’s the first woman to run it. And over at Meharry Medical College in Nashville? She was the dean of the School of Medicine and senior vice President of health affairs during her tenure.& But Montgomery Rice isn’t just about accolades and making history. She’s fighting health disparities and pushing for more Black physicians in communities that need them most. For example, Black women are three to four times more likely to die of pregnancy-related causes than white women. Rice is working to move the needle by training more Black physicians and placing them in underserved communities. “We...