Fact Sheet

Updated: May 2008

Addressing Michigan’s Health Care Needs

• Since its inception in 1969, the Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine has been dedicated to meeting the health care needs of the people of Michigan. 
• For eight years straight, the college has ranked in the top 5% of all medical schools (M.D. and D.O.) for primary care education, according to U.S.News and World Report.
• The college will be enrolling 50 additional students at each of two new expansion sites in southeast Michigan – Macomb University Center and Detroit Medical Center.
• Two-thirds of our 3,819 living alumni practice in Michigan, and more than 90 percent of the students in the entering classes are Michigan residents.
• More than half of all MSUCOM alumni practice primary care medicine – family practice, general internal medicine or general pediatrics. 
• They are active in 77 of Michigan’s 83 counties, serving people in metropolitan, suburban and rural areas.
• MSUCOM alumni practice in the full range of specialty care, such as anesthesiology, neurology, orthopedic surgery, genomics, pediatrics and gerontology.

A Statewide Campus

• Our primary mission is education, and with projected expansion of our entering class size to 300 – 200 in East Lansing and 100 in southeast Michigan – we are working to address the anticipated physician shortage in the state and the nation.
• To provide high-quality pre- and postdoctoral osteopathic medical education, MSUCOM collaborates with 27 Michigan community hospitals through its Statewide Campus System. This year 1,288 physicians-in-training are enrolled in SCS programs.     
• More than 2,000 Michigan physicians hold clinical faculty appointments, volunteering to teach third- and fourth-year students in their communities and local hospitals, and allowing us to provide quality education at a lower cost per student than most other state medical schools.
• MSUCOM provides continuing medical education classes and credit for Michigan’s osteopathic physicians and other health care providers.  During 2006-07 MSUCOM offered 68 CME programs providing nearly 700 hours of CME credits.  A total of 1,024 health providers attended these courses.
• In 2008, two new graduates completed MSUCOM’s DO-PhD Program. There are now 28 graduates from this program that began in 1979.  The current class has an enrollment of 18 students, the largest since the program was established.  

Service is our Keystone

• The Department of Pediatrics is the largest single provider of pediatric care to poor children in the Lansing area. 
• MSUCOM faculty provide services at the Ingham County Health department and at clinics serving the homeless, persons with substance abuse problems and the indigent.
• The college provides medical services for the Michigan Special Olympics, has one of eight designated muscular dystrophy/ ALS clinics in the nation, facilitates an immigration clinic, and conducts numerous health screenings and immunization clinics each year.
• Among our alumni are medical schools deans, nationally recognized researchers, top-ranking military leaders, persons recognized for their work with the poor and medically underserved, sports physicians for collegiate and professional teams, and consultants involved in high-profile medical care.
• Faculty, students, staff and alumni provide outreach to their communities through health education, health screenings, free clinics, support for other non-profit organizations, voluntarism, and more.

The Leading Osteopathic College in Biomedical Research

• MSUCOM has a highly distinguished cadre of researchers among its faculty—including three professors who hold endowed chairs, and five MSU University Distinguished Professors.
• MSUCOM receives more funding from the National Institutes of Health than any other osteopathic college.  Two of the college’s senior investigators, J. Justin McCormick and Veronica Maher, rank among the top 5% of investigators funded by the NIH over the past quarter century.  
• MSUCOM actively invests in promising research projects.  Michigan State University’s largest NIH Program Project Grant ever (valued at $9 million) grew out of a modest seed grant first funded by the MSUCOM research office.
• MSUCOM recently secured the generous donation of an MRI scanner from the General Electric Corporation to further college research on pediatric malaria in sub-Saharan Africa.  A new facility built by the college will house the first MRI instrument in Malawi.  The scanner will be used to both further Dr. Terrie Taylor’s research and improve patient care.
• MSUCOM initiated the first dual-degree DO-PhD Program in the United States in 1979.  Many of the program’s graduates have gone on to have distinguished research careers, and two graduates of the program — Andrea Amalfitano, D.O., Ph.D., and John Goudreau, D.O., Ph.D. — are now on the MSUCOM faculty.
• MSUCOM has recruited Jacek Cholewicki, Ph.D., from the Yale University College of Medicine to develop college research in orthopedics as a Walter F. Patenge professor.

From Michigan to the World

MSUCOM is involved with a wide variety of international health programs, including

• The Institute of International Health
• Malaria research and clinical care in Malawi
• Neurology and epilepsy care and research in Zambia
• The development of clinical clerkships abroad by the International Health Project, a student organization.
• Medical missions abroad conducted by a significant number of individual faculty, students and staff.

Questions?  Please contact us!

Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine
A306 East Fee Hall, East Lansing, MI 48824-1316
Voice: (517) 353-0616
Fax: (517) 353-9862
Email: pub-rel@com.msu.edu