HATTIESBURG—At a June 11 program geared to physicians and medical community leaders in the Mississippi Delta, Darrell Lovins, DO, shared ambitious plans for the proposed William Carey University (WCU) College of Osteopathic Medicine (COM) being built in the "Hub City" of Hattiesburg. The new COM will feature "hub site" satellite locations across Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Alabama.

At the program, held at the Greenville Country Club, Lovins, associate dean of clinical sciences of the COM, announced the Delta Regional Medical Center is the proposed "hub site" for the Delta and represents a vital part of the university's proposed solution to impact the shortage of physicians in Mississippi and the South.

 

WCU leaders hatched plans for the new medical school in 2006, and hired Michael Murphy, DO, as dean of the COM in January 2008. The provisional accreditation for the COM, already pre-accredited, should be completed for the Commission of Osteopathic College Accreditation this fall. The first group of 100 medical school students will start classes next fall. When open in 2010, the COM will represent the 29^th school of its kind in the nation.

 

During the groundbreaking celebration in early May, WCU president Tommy King proclaimed it was "a great day, maybe the greatest day since the school was founded." WCU was founded as Mississippi Woman's College in 1906, 24 years after Captain William Hardy, a pioneer lumberman, established Hattiesburg. Anchored on a 120-acre campus in Hattiesburg, the 2,600-student university has a satellite location in Gulfport. Its School of Nursing has a site on the campus of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

 

The other great part, added Murphy, "will be graduating our first students … hopefully in 2014," before they begin a three-year residency as part of training to become physicians focusing on primary care. "Hopefully, we'll get them here … and keep them here, where we need them."

 

Lovins said WCU leaders decided to pursue the COM after realizing that 56 percent of Mississippi physicians practice in four urban areas. Only 12 percent practice in the Delta.

 

"Mississippi is last in physicians per capita with 62 percent of its counties underserved," he pointed out. "The lack of availablephysicians has been caused by several factors, which include a reduction of enrollment in medical schools due to the anticipated surplus of physicians of the 1980s, no medical school enrollment change for 20 years, change of financing rules, demographic change in medical school, and generational change in work ethic."

 

Osteopathic physicians, who receive extra training in the musculoskeletal system, represent one of the fastest-growing segments of healthcare providers. Fifteen percent of physicians in small towns and rural areas are DOs. Between 1989 and 1994, DO growth outpaced MD growth almost two to one. By 2020, more than 80,000 osteopathic physicians will practice in the United States. Some 380 osteopathic physicians are licensed in Mississippi.

 

"Nearly 1,000 qualified candidates in Mississippi and neighboring states don't get into medical schools," said Lovins, who believes the WCU COM will complement the University of Mississippi's medical school in Jackson.

 

To finance the $10.7 million, three-phase project, WCU received a $1 million grant from the Asbury Foundation of Hattiesburg. "For some universities, this is a drop in the bucket ... but for us this a very big deal," said King, adding that the grant-making organization has contributed $2.4 million to the university since it was established in 1984.

 

Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Mississippi's $100,000 grant, combined with two anonymous pledges of $100,000 each, brought the fundraising total to $1.3 million.

 

The first phase includes labs and classrooms and will be completed by the time new medical school students arrive on campus. Phase II will include additional teaching, examination and treatment areas; Phase III will feature primarily administrative offices.

 

Last year, Magnolia Regional Health Center initiated an osteopathic medical residency program in collaboration with the Pikeville College School of Osteopathic Medicine (PCSOM). WCU recruited Murphy and Lovins from PCSOM. Both men had also served in the military, which has more than 1,000 osteopathic physicians, including the commanding officer of the President's Hospital Naval Medical Center Bethesda. The surgeon general of the U.S. Army, Indian Health Service, and U.S. Coast Guard were DOs.