VCOM 2021 Annual Report

Hearst Foundations Provide $125,000 Grant

T he William Randolph Hearst Foundation has awarded $125,000 to the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine (VCOM) to fund scholarships for 50 VCOM medical students pursuing careers in primary care medicine. In receiving news of the grant, VCOM President and Provost Dixie Tooke-Rawlins said, “We appreciate so much the commitment of the Hearst Foundations. As a medical school committed to educating physicians to serve rural and medically underserved populations, with a focus on the Southern Appalachian and Delta regions of the Southeastern United States, our mission aligns well with this commitment. The scholarship will help to support our students with this goal as well as the lives of the patients they will serve.” Paul “Dino” Dinovitz, Hearst Foundation’s Executive Director, added, “The VCOM Scholarship Program embodies our dual commitment to help leading academic institutions respond to the country’s evolving healthcare needs and to support medical students pursuing their dreams of becoming primary care physicians and returning to practice in underserved communities.”

President Tooke-Rawlins also added, “VCOM has set standards in it’s commitment to human health, education and compassion since day one, with focus on training students from and returning them to the southeastern United States to practice medicine. With more than 46% of our students from rural communities with a population of less than 30,000, these scholarships from the Hearst Foundation will assist our students who commit to returning to these regions to serve.” Monroe, VCOM became the largest physician provider in the Southeastern United States and the second-largest in the country, enrolling 650 new students each year. The four VCOM campuses are located in the Southeast United States, where the largest physician shortages exist and life expectancy is often up to 10 years shorter than the rest of the nation. The campuses located in Southwest Virginia, Alabama and South Carolina will graduate 474 new physicians in 2021 and raise the total number of VCOM physician graduates to more than 4,100. ■ Last year, with the opening of a fourth campus at the University of Louisiana

For more information about the scholarship, please contact Thimothy Corvin, Vice President for College Development and Alumni Relations, at 540-231-7189 or tcorvin@vcom.edu.

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