The newest group of students has arrived at the Edward Via Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine (VCOM) in Blacksburg. Representing the Class of 2013 are 189 first-year students, taken from an application pool of over 3,200.
Students at this college must not only have the grades, but also a love for rural medicine. “We look for students who will meet our mission,” explains William King, Associate Dean for Student Services at VCOM. The college’s mission is to provide medical education and research which will prepare community minded physicians who will practice in medically underserved areas. An emphasis is placed on attracting students from Virginia, North and South Carolina and the remaining Appalachian region. Sixty-eight percent of the incoming VCOM class comes from these regions.
Osteopathic physicians (D.O’s) have an approach to medicine focused on the patient rather than the disease. Their approach also includes a manipulative aspect. D.O.’s and M.D.’s are the only two types of physicians who are fully trained and licensed to practice the full scope of medicine, and while osteopathic physicians are found in every medical specialty, many choose to work in primary care areas such as family medicine, internal medicine, and pediatrics.
VCOM, with a total of just over 700 students, “is becoming one of the largest medical schools in the State of Virginia,” notes H. Dean Sutphin, Ph.D., Assistant Vice President for International Health and Appalachian Outreach. Located off Rt. 460 near Virginia Tech, it is a growing campus with four buildings, one of which is just being completed. A modern medical school with the latest in technology, its outreach extends to 26 affiliated hospitals in Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, and counting proctors in those locations and the school’s core faculty, there are over 500 faculty physicians working with the College.
The main building at VCOM houses two lecture halls, student study rooms, an eating area and coffee shop, a library, and the anatomy lab. The building is completely wireless. Study rooms have interactive videoconferencing and downloadable white boards. On the top floor, the anatomy lab has views of the campus below through two walls of windows. It also includes an electronic program for dissection of cadavers.
Also on campus is the Knollwood Building housing the VCOM Simulation and Technology Center, headed by Dr. Fred Rawlins. The Center includes cutting-edge high fidelity human medical simulators, simulated medical suites, training labs with one-way mirrors, and the latest in medical technology. Among the human simulation models are a male, a baby, and an expectant mother who gives birth. Computers, on which students can record their diagnoses and their work can then be accessed by faculty for grading purposes, are mounted outside examination rooms. For training purposes, the College also hires “live persons” as actors, who have a script they follow serving as the students’ patients. The Center also has a training area for manipulative medicine, an important aspect of osteopathic medical training.
VCOM students spend their first two years on campus; in the third and fourth years, they do core rotations at clinical sites in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina, King comments. Also in the fourth year, King adds, some students may be elsewhere in the United States and even abroad for audition rotations for residences in sub-specialties.
While attending VCOM, students also have the opportunity to participate in medical mission trips. The college’s international health program includes three full-time international clinic sites, operating year-round. VCOM arranges 8-9 trips to those sites a year, and 20-35 students are accepted for each trip. Locations are El Salvador, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic. Jessica Muller, who works in the office for International Health and Appalachian Outreach, explains the College has specific areas of service for the students in those countries. Students work in teams of three or four with a family doctor. They will examine patients, take vital signs and work with the doctor to make a diagnosis. A mobile pharmacy travels with the VCOM group on each trip “because resources are so limited in these countries,” Muller comments.
In February, a college group traveled to El Salvador and worked in orphanages. In November, another group went to Honduras to provide disaster relief. On a recent trip to the Dominican Republic, a group took about six years’ worth of surgical equipment that had been donated to a hospital in that country.
The College also has been given use of a warehouse by the Burch family. The warehouse stores supplies to upgrade clinics at international locations and other items to benefit medical outreach programs in Appalachia, says Sutphin. The warehouse is also currently holding 35,000 pairs of shoes – new sandals, work boots, dress and athletic shoes, donated by Food Levelers in Roanoke and shipped in eight tractor trailer loads by Premier trucking, also based in Roanoke. As part of VCOM’s global health initiative, the shoes will be going El Salvador, Honduras, and the Dominican Republic. Because they often do not have adequate shoes, the people in those countries have medical problems with parasites, fungal infections, and injuries.
Andrew Lawson, a second year VCOM student from Huntsville, Alabama, traveled to Honduras on a recent mission trip. He says, “Many are malnourished and needs vitamins….Adults have a hard life. They do a lot of manual labor.” As a result, Lawson notes, there are cases of arthritis, in addition to problems associated with lack of shoes.
On the international trips, Sutphin says, the VCOM physicians and students see 200 or more people a day. Their patients reach the clinics by walking or by riding horses.
The other part of the college’s mission program is closer home, in Virginia, Sutphin adds. VCOM has a medically equipped trailer and other vehicles to help with these projects. Every Friday, there is a clinical service, provided free of charge, to the community. The college also works with 26 high schools in the region. VCOM students take this mini-medical school to the high schools and teach students about such topics as the effects of alcohol and drug use and about topics which will impact their overall health and nutrition. The program has been highly successful, Sutphin notes, having won national funding from the American Medical Association.
A group of four doctors and five students just completed another rural medicine program for patients, as part of UVA’s RAM project in Wise County. The program offered dental, optometric, and medical care over a weekend.
The goal with the school-based programs and cooperative efforts with free clinics is “outreach to the community,” Sutphin says. Such programs are also valuable experiences for the VCOM students, he adds. “The goal is for students to become compassionate physicians, motivated by needs and rewarded by services they provide.”
VCOM also has a clinic, Academic Primary Care Associates (APCA), located on the first floor of Montgomery Regional Hospital. Ward Stevens, Assistant Vice President for Development, manages that clinic. Physicians at the College work at the clinic, which also provides a training opportunity for VCOM students. The clinic is a family practice, offering general medical services, osteopathic manipulative medicine and sports medicine. “Our goal,” remarks Stevens, “is to reach out to the community and provide medical care, particularly in osteopathic medicine.” Stevens said the clinic, which opened in September, 2007, is also applying for status as a federally qualified health clinic.
VCOM students live off-campus. Textbooks and other educational materials are available online through the “virtual” library.
Isaac Spence, a third year VCOM student from Floyd, says he wanted to go to VCOM because of its family like atmosphere. “I knew medical school was going to be challenging enough, and I didn’t want to make it any harder by attending a medical school that I didn’t feel its faculty, staff and students were going to support me. I also chose VCOM because I had a strong desire to learn the principals of osteopathic medicine.”
Spence has gone on two of the college’s mission trips and has participated in local medical programs in Southwest Virginia.. He traveled to El Salvador his first year and helped administer free health care there. He has traveled to Missouri with a group from the medical school that provided assistance to families whose homes were leveled by a flood. He has also volunteered in the last two Wise County RAM missions and is an officer in the VCOM chapter of the Virginia Rural Health Association.
Of his future plans, Spence says, “I am not sure of what type of physician I want to be, but I do have a passion for rural and medically underserved populations.” He says he may ultimately choose to enter a primary care specialty such as family medicine, internal medicine, or emergency medicine.
The college has had three graduating classes, and all of the graduates are now in residencies. Depending on the area of specialty, residencies can take three to five years.
VCOM is also helping hospitals establish residency programs to provide graduates with the opportunity to complete their post-doctoral training in Southwest and Southside Virginia.. Montgomery Regional and Bluefield Regional Medical Center are two of those efforts, King says, and other residency programs are planned at Danville Regional Medical Center. Sixty-three percent of VCOM’s last year’s graduates are doing their residencies in Virginia or another Appalachian state.
International rotation options are also offered to third and fourth year students.
In addition, VCOM offers collaborative graduate degree programs, including an MBA and other graduate programs, with Virginia Tech.