VCOM 2019 Annual Report

MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIRMAN Our Purpose is to Ensure Excellence in Medical Education JOHN G. ROCOVICH JR., JD, LLM F rom its founding, the purpose of the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine (VCOM) has been to alleviate the shortage of physicians in Southwest Virginia and the southern Appalachian region. As this need has become greater and more urgent in surrounding regions, the College has expanded across the southern United States. One of the VCOM Board of Directors’ main purposes is to support the administration’s recruitment of great minds for leadership positions, which serves to bolster the College’s forward momentum in medical education and biomedical research. The board also serves to ensure the College maintains a secure financial position, enabling it to provide an excellent medical education in some of the most modern and innovative campus facilities in our country. Over two-thirds of the more than 3,100 physicians who have graduated from all VCOM campuses since 2007 have returned to Appalachian states for their first practices, and more than half of them go into primary care practice. The VCOM Board of Directors and Campus Advisory Boards have overseen a mission that has moved from the realm of ideas to the reality of thousands of physicians returning to rural and medically underserved communities. Thanks to excellent leadership, as well as outstanding students and faculty who embody the very purpose of VCOM, our mission moves forward.

8