TCU Celebrates the Opening of the Burnett School of Medicine Education Building in Fort Worth’s Medical Innovation District

FORT WORTH — The Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine at Texas Christian University celebrates the dedication of its new 95,000-square-foot medical education building in the heart of Fort Worth’s Medical Innovation District (MID) with a celebration on Tuesday, Sept. 24.

This innovative medical education building features cutting-edge technology and education spaces to train the next generation of physicians. Completed in June 2024, the building welcomed the sixth class of medical students in July and is home to more than 240 medical students, as well as hundreds of faculty and staff.

“This beautiful and functional new medical education building now known as Arnold Hall shows TCU’s continued investment in Fort Worth,” Victor J. Boschini, Jr., TCU Chancellor, said. “Here, we inspire students to be leaders in their field, give back to their communities and provide the most compassionate care. All of us at TCU express our deepest appreciation to Ashley and Greg Arnold for their significant and continued support and for helping our vision become a reality.”

The building was named Arnold Hall in honor of Ashley and Greg Arnold of Dallas, Texas, for their generous philanthropic support of TCU and the Burnett School of Medicine. The Arnolds are longtime supporters of the university and have been involved as parents of three TCU graduates, and Greg serves the university as a member of the TCU Board of Trustees. They have made major gifts to TCU and the Burnett School of Medicine over the years. In 2023, they created the Ashley and Greg Arnold Endowment to provide perpetual support for annual operations of the Burnett School of Medicine and they supported Lead On: A Campaign for TCU, the university’s boldest fundraising campaign in its 150-year history.

“On behalf of the Texas Christian University Board of Trustees, I express our deepest appreciation to the Arnolds and all our generous donors for this wonderful new home for the Burnett School of Medicine,” Kit T. Moncrief, Chair of the TCU Board of Trustees, said. “Inside and out, Arnold Hall reflects the beauty and tradition of the main TCU campus, bringing the Horned Frog spirit to an equally vibrant and dynamic area of Fort Worth.”

In Fiscal Year 2023, TCU’s operations and expenditures, coupled with spending by faculty, staff, students and visitors, collectively amounted to $2.1 billion nationally, with $1.3 billion of that directly impacting the city of Fort Worth. The Burnett School of Medicine alone supported 1,125 jobs and had a $157.5 million economic impact, with $5.3 million generated in state and local taxes.⁺

“As TCU strengthens its community impact, Arnold Hall serves as a place where our faculty and students can become the best possible physicians, be agents of change in health care and search for innovative solutions to today’s most vexing issues,” Daniel W. Pullin, TCU President, said. “The Burnett School of Medicine will continue to drive our economy, increase our community’s quality of life and make TCU a beacon of talent in health care.”

Linbeck Group construction crews’ broke ground on the four-story medical education building in Fort Worth’s Near Southside and MID in August 2022. The building was designed by CO Architects and Hoefer Welker. The building sits at the corner of West Rosedale and South Henderson streets and supports 240 medical students and hundreds of faculty and staff.

“Arnold Hall is now our permanent home and a place where we can have a transformational impact on health care,” Stuart D. Flynn, M.D., founding dean of Burnett School of Medicine said. “This medical school will be a significant contributor to Fort Worth’s economy and growth as a city where medical innovation happens. We love the proximity to all of our clinical partners in the Near Southside Medical Innovation District and look forward to deepening those connections.”

The building has technologically advanced learning spaces like the two-story Amon G. Carter Foundation Inspiration Commons that feature two classrooms separated by a retractable sky fold wall in the middle, which also doubles as a whiteboard. The retractable wall can open the space into one large classroom to support 120 students. The walls in the learning studio are projection walls coated with special paint to allow a projector to display images.

The third floor houses the Anatomy Lab, Simulation & Technology, Clinical Skills, Student Lounge and more spaces for medical training. These teaching spaces provide the opportunity for students to learn about the human body through a continuum of anatomy, simulation, HoloLens augmented reality anatomy and clinical skills with simulated patients (paid actors who serve as patients with diseases or conditions).

As you walk through the building there is a monumental floating staircase that begins in the Forum area of the first floor and spirals up four floors, wrapped in glass, with scenic views of Downtown Fort Worth’s skyline.

The Burnett School of Medicine was launched in 2015 with the goal of transforming medical education by inspiring Empathetic Scholars®. The medical school created a unique curriculum tailored to how students learn best, capitalizing on teamwork and active application sessions, while always keeping the patient at the center. The curriculum has a flipped classroom model featuring active learning and no lectures. It has communication skills instruction in all four years and clinical training in a Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship (LIC) allowing students more exposure to patient care in varied settings, as well as the opportunity to follow a group of patients over four years. All students are required to complete a mentored four-year research project upon graduation.

The inaugural class of 60 medical students began in July 2019, and since then, the medical school has graduated two classes of medical students. Graduates of the medical school have landed residency spots in top programs such as, The Mayo Clinic, Stanford Health Care, UCLA Health, Vanderbilt, University of Michigan, NYU, and UT Southwestern Medical Center.

About the Burnett School of Medicine at TCU

The Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine at Texas Christian University opened in July 2019 in Fort Worth, Texas, to transform health care by inspiring Empathetic Scholars®. The allopathic (M.D. granting) medical school was fully accredited by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME) in 2023. The innovative curriculum includes an emphasis on compassionate patient care, a four-year Longitudinal Integrated Clerkship, and a four-year Scholarly Pursuit and Thesis research project.  Preparing students for the way medicine will be practiced in the future, the Burnett School of Medicine focuses on future advances, while keeping the patient the center of care.