As the richest woman in the world, Alice Walton could turn her sizable resources to any cause. She chose health. After her own experience in and out of hospitals to treat a bone infection following a car accident, she saw firsthand how “broken” the U.S. health care system is, she says—from the widely disparate health services that people living in different parts of the country can access, to the skewed financial system that incentivizes more tests and procedures instead of medical care that focuses on providing the best health outcomes. Her solution was to create the Alice Walton School of Medicine, which will open in her home state of Arkansas in July 2025 and will train doctors with an innovative approach that addresses the whole patient, including behaviors and lifestyle as well as their physical symptoms. “Doctors are not trained in nutrition and preventive care because they are not paid to do it,” says Walton. “The health system and medical schools are just reacting to what the system incentivizes.”
Walton will cover tuition for the first five classes. “I wanted to create a school that really gives doctors training on, number one, how to keep patients healthy, and, number two, the financial incentives in the system and what they should be so we can move toward value-based payments,” she says. And because Walton is a longtime art collector, the medical school will also feature a heavy dose of exposure to art. The school is steps from Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Ark., which she opened in 2011 to share her collection with the public. Art helped her through her own health journey, and she’s convinced that it will play an important role in teaching both doctors and patients how to take better care of themselves. “I do believe that the art world and the health care world need to collide more, because both will benefit from it,” she says. “It’s going to be exciting to see what happens.”