Some Bobcats now have a home in a new city — Dublin, Ohio.
Ohio University’s Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine branch campus opened its doors July 9 to 50 first-year medical students. For those 50 students, July 9 served as the first day of a four-year program to train them in becoming primary care physicians.
Students enrolled in the program will spend the first two years of the program at the Dublin Campus studying basics and skills in primary care, and they will begin clinical rotations primarily in the central Ohio region in their third and fourth years, said William Burke, dean of the Dublin campus.
“Our presence in the central Ohio community is a source of pride for me personally and will, in the long run, benefit the citizens of central Ohio,” Burke said in a statement.
The total cost to build the campus was budgeted at $24.7 million. The campus’ projected economic impact is $26.4 million annually, said Jim Phillips, a college spokesman, in an email.
Nearly thirty percent of a $105 million grant the college received from the Osteopathic Heritage Foundation is funding the Dublin campus, according to a previous
Post
article.
OU first purchased 60 acres — which included three existing buildings — for its extension campus in July 2012 for $11 million, completely funded by the grant from the Foundation. The city of Dublin later donated 75 additional acres to the university, according to an OU-HCOM press release.
For the first few years, the Dublin campus will admit 50 students per entering class, but Burke said that number is expected to go up to 60 within five years. Currently, the campus has 16 faculty, 15 staff members and two manipulative medicine associates, or students remaining in medical school an extra year to lead discussions and labs, Burke said.
Burke said he also looked forward to seeing the students develop clubs and organization, as well as the opportunity to develop a new curriculum for OU-HCOM with the college’s other locations within the next few years.
The extension campus will have a grand opening celebration Aug. 23. The class of 50 students were among the first to visit the branch during their orientation in May.
“The enthusiasm demonstrated by the students and their families at the (orientation) event was contagious,” Burke said in a statement.
The extension campus is a part of the Economic Development Agreement between the university and the city of Dublin, which includes a master planning study to be completed by 2018 and the Dublin Integrated Education Facility — a building to open in 2015 that will hold an extension of OU’s College of Health Sciences and Professions and other medical programs from throughout the state, according to a previous
Post
article.
OU-HCOM’s second extension campus in Cleveland is set to open in 2015.
dk123111@ohiou.edu
@DanielleRose84
How the $105 Osteopathic Heritage Foundation grant will support Dublin:
Dublin Campus Development: $24,710,000
Dublin Campus Start-Up Operations: $4,210,225
Total amount from grant that will go to Dublin Campus: $28,920,225
Percent of grant total: 27.5 percent
Average cost Dublin will receive per year: $1,606,679.17
