VCOM View Vol 10 No 1

Fourth VCOM Campus Opens Educating Future Physicians for Lousiana and the Delta Region

by Desi Hammett

F or many in northeast Louisiana, September 18, 2018, was just another hot and humid late summer Tuesday. However, for the select group of individuals who had spent months tirelessly planning and preparing for the facility that would soon be built on this very ground, it would prove to be just the beginning of the radically positive shift in healthcare they had envisioned for the community of Monroe, the state of Louisiana, and the Delta region as a whole. Despite the sun’s relentless heat that morning, John G. Rocovich Jr., JD, LLM, co-founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors for the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine (VCOM) and Dixie Tooke-Rawlins, DO, VCOM President and Provost, had smiles on their faces as they enthusiastically guided their shovels into the mound of earth where the College’s new Louisiana campus would soon reside. They were joined by more than a dozen other local, regional and national dignitaries, each of whom played an integral role in bringing VCOM to the University of Louisiana Monroe (ULM) campus. Hundreds braved the heat to attend the groundbreaking ceremony that day in celebration of a turning point in healthcare availability for the citizens of Louisiana and the Delta region. Today, two years after the groundbreaking ceremony, the former Heritage Park area of the ULM campus is home to four floors of the most modern medical teaching facilities available. The 90,000-square-foot VCOM-Louisiana building features a 4,100-square-foot anatomy lab, a high- tech simulation center, and a 3,300-square-foot lab for osteopathic manipulative medicine training. VCOM-Louisiana welcomed its inaugural class of 155 students in July of 2020.

summer/fall 2020 | VCOM V iew M agazine 7