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Carolinas Campus Update - Ways to Get Involved

The Via College of Osteopathic Medicine - Carolinas Campus recently received accreditation from the AOA Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation. As a branch campus, VCOM - Carolinas holds full accreditation. This allows VCOM to begin the process of recruiting and hiring Chairs for its respective departments and begin interviewing and accepting students for its Inaugural class. Indeed, student interviewing has already begun with acceptance letters sent to the early decision applicants. The job announcements for the Chair positions are being finalized and will be published soon on our web site: http://www.vcom.vt.edu/humanresources/index.html We plan to have the Chairs begin work with VCOM between January and March 2011.

One way osteopathic physicians can begin assisting VCOM now is to identify yourself as a DO who is willing to allow a prospective medical school applicant to "shadow" you at your practice site and/or interview the student and write a letter of recommendation on their behalf. As shadowing and obtaining a letter of recommendation from a DO is mandatory for admission to VCOM, our admissions Director often receives inquiries from potential students requesting contact information about osteopathic physicians in their area who are willing to participate in this way. Given our mission is to train physicians for service to underserved areas, with emphasis targeting the Carolinas and the Appalachian region, and given the shortage of osteopathic physicians in these areas, DOs in the Carolinas providing a glimpse of the practice of an osteopathic physician to prospective students is an excellent way to give back to the osteopathic profession. If interested, please send your contact information to our Admissions Director Mattie Bendall at mbendall@vcom.vt.edu.

Once our chairs are selected, we will be targeting additional faculty for teaching roles that may includes providing lectures to our students, teaching physical exam skills, teaching osteopathic manipulative therapy techniques, precepting our 3rd and 4th year students in their core, selective and elective rotations; and supervising/mentoring students on mission trips to our medical mission sites.

VCOM will conduct 9 Medical mission trips distributed among the Dominican Republic, El Salvador and Honduras during the 2010-11 academic year. At the Virginia campus, 242 students are registered to attend these trips. We expect, when the Carolina campus opens in the Fall of 2011, there will be significant student participation in medical mission trips for which expertise and preceptor participation from the Carolinas would be desirable.

Ideally, in 2010-11, one (or more) Carolinas doctors would serve as preceptors on each trip along with 3-4 doctors from VCOM in Blacksburg. Thus, doctors and faculty at the Carolinas Campus could benefit by working with Blacksburg international preceptors to learn the way VCOM conducts mission trips, speak from experience with students at the Carolina campus, become oriented to the VCOM international clinics, and begin the strong working relationship between the two campuses.

If you are interested in considering a mission trip, please contact Ron Januchowski, DO at RJanuchowski@srhs.com , Timothy Kowalski, DO at tkowalski@vcom.vt.edu or direct your inquiries to Dean Sutphin, PhD, Associate Vice President for International and Appalachian Outreach, at dsutphin@vcom.vt.edu Office Phone 540 231 6862.

The mission trip schedule and themes are attached for your consideration. I am looking forward to a long and rewarding working relationship with our Carolinas physicians. - Timothy J. Kowalski, D.O., FACN, DFAPA

Registration for the Medicare and Medicaid incentive programs is now open!

Eligible professionals can register at: https://ehrincentives.cms.gov/hitech/login.action. Questions? Visit http://www.cms.gov/EHRIncentivePrograms/.