“In St. Louis, For St. Louis” – The Practice of Service highlights the many ways our faculty are giving back and being leaders of change in St. Louis. Our faculty and students are committed to showing up, empowering our partners and striving to make a meaningful impact on our campus and in the communities we serve.
Will Ross, MD | Associate Dean for Diversity and Professor of Medicine
Dr. Will Ross’s community engagement has centered most recently on the Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience, a magnet health professions high school serving students in St. Louis City. His involvement began through his work with St. Louis Public Schools Superintendent Kelvin Adams, who was interested in expanding opportunities like Saturday Scholars, a 30+-year program that provides an annual forum for high school students to learn about human anatomy both in a lecture and lab environment in collaboration with WashU medical students. What began as an idea brainstormed on a Starbucks napkin grew into a school, with Dean Ross helping recruit teachers, secure funding, and create internship opportunities for students.
Since its creation in 2013, Collegiate has become one of the highest-performing schools in the city and state. Today, Dean Ross serves as the chair of the school’s Advisory Board. In this role, he helps guide the school’s current operations and long-term direction. In this way, he relies on using his experience, relationships, and professional network to help create opportunities for the students.
For Dean Ross, this work is particularly meaningful because it allows him to mentor students who may not otherwise have access to pathways into medicine and the health professions. His commitment to community service has remained consistent throughout his career, from early work in organ transplantation with focused efforts to increase organ donation among minoritized populations to establishing free clinics and helping create Collegiate. Across these experiences, a common theme has been identifying a community need and finding ways to help meet it. His advice to others interested in community engagement is straightforward: “Find your passion and volunteer with an organization which fulfills that need. What truly excites you? If you don’t find something that supports your passion, create it.” Dr. Ross will continue his work with Collegiate and increase involvement in organ donation as he steps down from his deanship this month (or stepped down in Sept if this runs in October) and decreases his clinical workload.