(The Center Square) – The majority of schools within the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education are situated in areas of primary care physician shortages. Most are in or near rural areas. None are medical schools.
Indiana University of Pennsylvania, or IUP, aims to change that with its proposed College of Osteopathic Medicine. The school recently signed a clinical training affiliation agreement with Torrance State Hospital it hopes will help address critical shortages in rural parts of the state.
“We have heard the calls for help, and we have responded with a bold plan,” said Dr. Michael Driscoll, president of IUP. “Why would IUP want to open a medical school? The answers are simple. Because we should, and with the help of great partners like Torrance, because we can.”
According to Secretary of Health Dr. Debra Bogen, students who have spent at least 12 weeks in a rural placement are more likely to continue careers in rural areas. Increasing medical infrastructure in these communities may not just be the key to addressing current health crises but also hold potential to increase the appeal for young families and new transplants to the state.
Speaking about the current landscape, Department of Human Services Secretary Dr. Val Arkoosh said, “It means that physicians and other providers are sometimes reluctant to practice in a rural area knowing that they may be one of the only providers serving a community.”
The university and the state are optimistic that the partnership with Torrance will be especially beneficial for the state of mental and behavioral healthcare. Torrance is one of just six state psychiatric hospitals. The hospital specializes in forensic psychiatry and is responsible for the care and, when possible, rehabilitation of criminal offenders and juveniles suffering from severe mental illness.
“We provide very humane services to those who are facing serious charges where those individuals face very bleak futures, what will happen to their life,” said Torrance Interim Chief Medical Officer Dr. Daleep Rathore. “So from outside, they may look like very secure facilities, but from inside, we provide them very good care, and a lot of them, we restore their competency.”
The school has secured partnerships with eleven other community health centers. Medical students typically spend the latter two of their four-year medical programs in clinical placements. It’s in these placements that they typically begin to narrow down their focus to the specialties they’ll pursue in residency.
Pennsylvania is currently home to three of the nation’s 42 osteopathic medical schools, all of which are private. Though osteopathic medicine’s origins are rooted in a unique paradigm emphasizing manipulations of the body, today the field is largely indistinguishable from mainstream medicine.
There are, however, key differences in the groups who choose to pursue osteopathic medical degrees. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, over half of DOs go on to pursue primary care careers, while just over a quarter of MDs do. Osteopathic medical graduates are also more likely to work in rural and other underserved areas.
“The difference between a college of medicine, and a college of osteopathic medicine is often the approach to care. Doctors of osteopathic medicine practice a holistic approach where they treat the whole patient in many ways,” said Driscoll.
