Indiana University of Pennsylvania recently hired a dean for a proposed medical school that would be a first among Pennsylvania’s 10 state-owned universities.
Dr. Miko Rose was hired after a national search and began work at IUP in November. She is a physician specializing in psychiatry and neurology and previously worked at Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences College of Osteopathic Medicine in Yakima, Wash.
IUP’s proposed medical school is aimed at drawing students from rural areas, who in turn are considered more likely to remain in rural areas, where there has long been a serious shortage of doctors. Rose has also stated a goal of making a medical degree affordable for rural students, with plans to use fundraising to offset tuition costs.
It would be an osteopathic medical school. Physicians trained in osteopathic medicine are called DOs; other physicians are called MDs.
DOs differ from MDs in having a more “holistic approach to patient care,” including a focus on how injury or illness in one part of the body affects other parts, according to the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. Like MDs, they attend four years of medical school followed by residencies, and are qualified to prescribe medications and treat all illnesses, and some becoming surgeons.
Most are primary care doctors focusing on family medicine, and many are based in small towns and rural areas.
IUP now must obtain accreditation from the American Osteopathic Association’s Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation, which is expected to take 3-5 years.
It would become one of four osteopathic medical schools in Pennsylvania, and the only non-private institution among the group.
The proposed medical school is being welcomed in rural western Pennsylvania. An editorial in The Tribune-Democrat, based in Johnstown, said it “can’t come to fruition soon enough.”
The project has received a $1 million gift from Richard Caruso, who graduated from IUP in 1983 with a degree in accounting.
The proposal was approved last year by the IUP Council of Trustees, which is chaired by Sam Smith, the former speaker of the state House, who is also vice chair of the Pennsylvania State System Board of Governors overseeing the ten state-owned universities.
Rose has a background in focusing on underserved populations, including those living in rural areas.
“Our goal of providing affordable opportunities to practice medicine to people from rural areas, who are more likely to ultimately work in those same rural settings, is perfectly complimented by Dr. Rose’s own life mission,” Smith said.
Stories by David Wenner
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