Well, well, well

By Gary Henderson  

JUNE 1, 2009 3:17 a.m. (0)

A Blacksburg, Va., medical school has asked Wofford College and Spartanburg Regional Medical Center to partner in the opening of a 400-student osteopathic teaching facility on the city’s north side.

If negotiations between the three parties are successful, Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine will open a branch of the seven-year-old medical school in a location near the two Spartanburg institutions.

Unlike graduates of traditional medical schools who are known by the M.D. following their names, osteopaths are designated by the letters D.O.

Osteopathic doctors are more prevalent in areas outside the South, especially the Midwest and in northeastern states.

There are about 24 osteopathic doctors with practice in Spartanburg County.

Chad Lawson, a spokesman for Spartanburg Regional, said one in five medical students nationally is attending an osteopathic institution. He said more than 1,000 osteopathic physicians practice medicine in the Carolinas.

Information published by Virginia College states that osteopathic physicians use the same diagnostic procedures and care as medical doctors, but with more of a holistic approach to treating patients. Besides traditional medicines that osteopathic physicians prescribe, they might also include musculoskeletal manipulation as part of their treatment regimen.

A medical center official said the Virginia school is looking for rental space in Spartanburg to initially house the school. The Spartanburg location would be the second for the medical college.

In Blacksburg, the osteopathic medical school collaborates with Virginia Tech University for dining halls, access to sporting events and use of student facilities, but not dormitories. The school is seeking a similar arrangement with Wofford.

Wofford officials provided only limited information about its possible relationship with the medical college, saying no decision had been made.

“We have been approached by (the medical college),” said Wofford spokesperson Laura Corbin. “Our board and our administration are studying the possibilities.”

A delegation of Wofford officials flew to Blacksburg last week to visit the medical school.

The school focuses on the Appalachian region for student recruitment and the placement of doctors after they graduate as doctors of osteopathy.

Virginia College initially considered Charlotte for a branch location, but switched to Spartanburg because of the geographic connection between Wofford and Regional.

During its first five years of operation, the medical school reported it paid $2.5 million to Virginia Tech for the services it received.

Lawson said the medical center has been affiliated with Virginia College of Osteopathic Medicine since 2003. The partnering alliance would signal a furthering of the hospital’s commitment to the school, he said.

Lawson said by September the Spartanburg hospital will have trained 19 of the Virginia school’s third- and fourth-year students in its residency programs.

Spartanburg Regional’s program is the only residency in South Carolina that is accredited by both the American Osteopathic Association, and the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education.

Ingo Angermeier, regional’s president, said the medical school would produce an initial influx of 200 first- and second-year medical students with an equal number of third and fourth year-students to be phased in over the next two years.

“We are thrilled to death,” Angermeier said. “This is truly one of the largest developments in medical care in the Upstate. It will improve accessibility to medical care.”

Angermeier said there is a shortage of general practice physicians throughout the country. He said having the school in Spartanburg could help fill the gaps in rural areas of the state and in South Carolina’s under-served communities.

The medical school was founded in part because of the need for family practice doctors in the rural areas of southern and southwest Virginia. The shortfall was revealed in a study done by the Harvey W. Peter Research Foundation, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and Virginia Tech.

A report of the study published on the school’s Web site states 30 Virginia counties had critical shortages.

Health Affairs, The Policy Journal of the Health Sphere, followed with the publication of a 2002 report that detailed nationwide shortages of general practice doctors – 50,000 by 2010 and 100,000 by 2020.

Eight of the 14 osteopathic doctors now in Regional’s residency programs are graduates of the Virginia osteopathic medical school. Twelve of these doctors are in a family practice residency and two are doing general surgery.

They train side-by-side with traditional medical doctor residents.

Angermeier said the impact of the partnership would be far reaching because regional could not accommodate all the medical school’s students for clinical training.

He said the medical school is looking for additional clinical sites throughout the Upstate.

The medical school’s student-to-professor ratio is 5.5 to 1. Senior-level students at the school who are out in clinical settings return to help teach first- and second-year undergraduates.

Since the medical school’s founding, it has graduated 450 physicians.

Dr. Dixie Tooke-Rawlins, the college’s dean, said 50 students from South Carolina are currently enrolled at the Virginia location, including students from Wofford College, USC Upstate, Clemson University and Bob Jones University.

Based on the total money the medical school spent in Blacksburg and in southwest Virginia during its first five years of operation, the school claims an economic impact of about $166 million.

The living and training expenses of the additional 500 students that came to attend the school during that period was $32 million, the school reported.