ATLANTIC CITY – The Temple University Lewis Katz School of Medicine and AtlantiCare have formalized an agreement to establish a new regional campus in Atlantic City, the health organizations announced Thursday. Once open, the location will serve as one of four principal locations for the Katz School of Medicine, which is named for philanthropist Lewis Katz who summered in Longport.
“We are delighted to partner with AtlantiCare, the premier healthcare provider in southeastern New Jersey, on this important endeavor,” Temple President John Fry said. “Both Temple and the Katz School of Medicine are guided by the belief that education and healthcare open doors and transform communities, and that is exactly what we have accomplished in Pennsylvania. With AtlantiCare, we now have the ideal new partner to help us further our impact.”
The Katz School of Medicine currently enrolls 880 medical students across its existing campuses in North Philadelphia and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
“The launch of a new regional campus with AtlantiCare, our first in South Jersey, represents an exciting milestone for the Lewis Katz School of Medicine,” said Amy J. Goldberg, The Marjorie Joy Katz Dean of the Lewis Katz School of Medicine. “Our partnership with AtlantiCare expands where and how our students learn while strengthening our commitment to training physicians who serve communities across the region.”
Construction on the estimated $50 million Atlantic City campus will start in 2027 and be open by August 2029, with 40 students, including third-year and fourth-year rotating students. Its first graduating class is expected to take the Hippocratic Oath in May 2033.
“For Temple, this new collaboration also directly supports our strategic plan, Forward with Purpose, and all three of its pillars: Student Success, Place-based Impact and Research in Action,” Fry said. “Congratulations to Dean Goldberg and her team for the work they have done in helping bring this to fruition. I look forward to working with both her and AtlantiCare in the coming months as we finalize this exciting new partnership.”
The partnership will also lead to improved health outcomes, as the organizations will have opportunities to collaborate on new research and educational initiatives.
“AtlantiCare is proud to partner with Temple University on what we believe is one of the most significant investments in the future of Atlantic City and South Jersey in decades,” said Michael Charlton, president and CEO of AtlantiCare. “Building a four-year School of Medicine in this region will help strengthen the physician pipeline, create new opportunity for students and support healthier communities for generations to come.”
The partnership advances AtlantiCare’s Vision 2030 strategy, a six-year plan to transform healthcare across South Jersey through community investment, workforce development, clinical excellence and systemwide innovation.
The new regional campus will play a key role in helping address the physician pipeline.
“At a time when the nation is facing growing shortages of physicians and other healthcare professionals, this partnership is an important investment in the future workforce South Jersey will need,” Charlton said. “It brings together Temple’s leadership in medical education with AtlantiCare’s longstanding commitment to the health and vitality of this region, and it reflects the kind of bold, long-term work we are advancing through Vision 2030.”
Lewis Katz, for whom the medical school is named, was born in Camden, grew up in the Parkside section, and following a storied business career developing parking lots and billboards, and in radio and sports and newspapers, came to own a home in Longport starting in 1974, where he and his family enjoyed their summers.
He was tragically killed in 2014 in an airplane crash that also claimed the lives of six others, including his next door neighbor Anne Leeds, a retired teacher and the wife of former Longport Commissioner Jim Leeds, when a plane he chartered ran out of runway and crashed at Hanscom Field in Bedford, Massachusetts.
He was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame in the Enterprise category in 2015. As the founder and director of the Katz Foundation he provided millions in support for charitable, educational and medical-related causes.
In his Hall of Fame induction speech for Katz, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey described his friend as “one of our state’s great philanthropists.”
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