A Medical School For The Community

Funded in part by taxpayer dollars, Dell Medical School has a mandate to improve community health. It’s also identifying novel ways to reward value.

Austin is a city of contrasts: Tex-Mex and tech, swimming holes and skyscrapers. But there’s a more poignant contrast evident in the Texas capital: the one between the increasingly wealthy residents of the fast-growing city and the marginalized communities that are left behind. Take the contrast between the University of Texas at Austin, an elite and well-endowed university, and the historically poor and minority area of the city that it abuts. Segregationist practices in the 1920s and 1930s deepened racial and ethnic divides in Austin, and even after these practices ended, Interstate 35 long...