Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine (VCOM) has added an interview agreement with Centenary College in Shreveport, LA, to its growing list of partnerships with collegiate institutions across the country. The new agreement provides a guaranteed on-campus interview at one of four VCOM campuses for Centenary students who meet both the general admission requirements for the medical college and a set of additional benchmarks, including GPA, competitive MCAT scores and community service hours.
Centenary president Christopher L. Holoman, PhD, provost Karen Soul, PhD, and biology faculty members Scott Chirhart, PhD, and Becki Murphy, PhD, represented Centenary College at a signing ceremony on the VCOM-Louisiana campus in Monroe on June 11. John G. Rocovich Jr., JD, LLM, co-founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors for VCOM, Ray L. Morrison, DO, FACOS, Dean of the VCOM-Louisiana campus, William P. King, MBA, Vice President for Recruitment and Application Services, Nathan Kinnard, MEd, Assistant Dean for Student Affairs and Development, and Tara Etheridge, MHA, Director for Admissions, represented VCOM.
Natalie Regian, Torhiana Haydel, Faith Sharp and Sarah Sober, members of the VCOM-Louisiana Class of 2024, also attended the signing ceremony as representatives of the College’s Student Government Association.
Osteopathic medicine emphasizes the interrelated unity of bodily systems and leverages the human body’s natural ability to heal in an effort to prioritize body, mind and spirit as equally important elements in an individual’s health. The VCOM-Louisiana campus in Monroe opened in 2020 as a partnership between VCOM and the University of Louisiana Monroe (ULM). VCOM’s mission is training osteopathic physicians who are both globally-minded and community-focused, with particular attention to meeting the needs of rural and medically underserved populations. The VCOM-ULM partnership seeks to address the critical physician shortage in Louisiana and the Delta Region, and the guaranteed interview program with Centenary provides a pathway to recruit high achieving students to the new program.
We find that recruiting students from small colleges with a Christian affiliation tends to give us the best possible students because they know what mission work is about and they understand what our mission is. For schools like Centenary, they fit perfectly into our recruitment and mission pattern.
Centenary students will be eligible for a guaranteed interview at VCOM if they meet all technical and general admission requirements, complete a required set of prerequisite courses, maintain an overall and a science GPA of 3.5, earn a competitive score on the MCAT exam, and complete a minimum of 40 hours of health care and 40 community volunteer hours by the time of their application.
In representing our mission to the State of Louisiana, it is important to offer this increased awareness to our institutions of higher learning within this state. This signing is a tangible demonstration of VCOM’s commitment to collaborate with Louisiana’s colleges and universities who also have a vested interest in the health care of this state.
With campuses in Blacksburg, VA, Spartanburg, SC, Auburn, AL, and Monroe, LA, VCOM has graduated over 4,100 new physicians since its founding in 2001, with over 65% going into primary care specialties such as family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics and obstetrics/gynecology.
“Centenary is very excited about this new partnership and the opportunities it provides our students,” said Holoman. “VCOM and Centenary share a commitment to outstanding medical education and the role that these new doctors can play in serving our region, Louisiana and the world. I look forward to expanding this partnership and working to build a dynamic health care education network along the I-20 corridor.