VCOM 2023 Annual Report

Betsy Woodruff: Investing in VCOM’s Legacy

B etsy Woodruff is a longtime member of the Blacksburg community who came to know VCOM through its founding president, James F. Wolfe, PhD. President Wolfe and his wife, Nancy, lived down the street from Betsy and her late husband, David. The two couples became good friends and, over the last two decades, Woodruff has been able to watch VCOM grow. “VCOM has been a first-class institution from day one,” she says.

They need to be extremely familiar with the scenario so they can pull from different parts of the script at different times depending on what questions the VCOM students are asking. After each scenario, the SPs answer questions and give feedback about the students’ performances, helping the students understand how to communicate more effectively with patients. “It made my day every day to walk into the Sim Center,” Woodruff says. “I love working with the students, and I believe in the program.” She says the whole program—

“When you have an institution like VCOM, doing the kind of work they do, putting out the kind of doctors they do, how can you not support that?”

students, faculty and other SPs—was like being part of a family. Though Woodruff eventually gave up her job as an SP to move to Northern Virginia to tend to her own family, she’s retained the friendships she made while working in the Sim Center and has a lot of respect for the work VCOM is doing for healthcare in the community.

Woodruff has done more than watch from a distance, however. Over a Chinese dinner a few years ago, President Wolfe asked Woodruff if she would consider becoming a standardized patient (SP) in VCOM’s state of-the-art Simulation and Technology Center. Excellent individualized care and a strong patient-physician relationship hinges upon successful communication, and time spent in the Sim Center helps students learn how to do just that. SPs are given scripts for scenarios and play the role of patients, giving students the chance to practice their skills on real people. Woodruff graduated from Virginia Tech in 1975 with a major in education and a minor in theatre and spent her career as a teacher, so becoming an SP was right in line with her skills. “The thing about being an SP is that the majority of your time is spent preparing for sessions. As a teacher, I was familiar with that.” Sometimes SP scripts can be six or seven pages, and because each student responds to the scenarios in their own way, SPs don’t read directly through the pages in order.

In addition to her work as an SP, Woodruff has been a longtime donor to VCOM and is a member of the College’s Legacy Society, which recognizes donors who have made planned gifts or bequests. Gifts like Woodruff’s help ensure that VCOM will have needed resources in future years as it continues its mission of educating physicians who will provide care to underserved communities in the Southeastern United States. “What is the most important thing you can invest in?” Woodruff asks. “Your health. And when you have an institution like VCOM, doing the kind of work they do, putting out the kind of doctors they do, how can you not support that?”

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