The road the inaugural school year at the Noorda College of Osteopathic Medicine has been a long one, but the college recently received pre-accreditation, allowing it to begin enrolling students.

Dr. John Dougherty, founding dean and Chief Academic Officer, said a good way of describing the journey to pre-accreditation is a roller coaster ride. Dougherty was first approached by Presidents Richard Nielsen about 3 years ago.

The news from last week was a culmination of a ton of work by a lot of different people but probably the most challenging part of it was making a cohesive group of individuals who would help us be successful, Dougherty said.

With the school beginning to enroll students, there were about 2,000 applications submitted from individuals looking to be a part of the inaugural class. Those 2,000 applicants will be narrowed down to just 90.

The pre-accreditation stage basically means Noorda-COM has the means to begin teaching, along with the necessary elements to educate students looking to become future physicians.

What sets Noorda-COM apart from other medical schools is that osteopathic schools teach students to focus on the patients rather than the diagnosis. Dougherty said this is something that osteopathic medicine was founded on.

This fits into the mold President Nielsen has laid out in his career as well as at Rocky Mountain University of Health Professions.

He sought out an Osteopathic medical school because of those core values and the similarity to his personal philosophy and that of osteopathic medicine, Dougherty said. It was a good match for what he was looking to develop and create here, relative to who we are as a profession.

With students being welcomed in for the fall of 2021, Dougherty said the school is looking for individuals who want to be what he calls heroes. It wants students who are humble, empathetic, respectful, open minded and those who understand that it is their calling to be there for the patient.

Along with the search for students to fill the inaugural class, Noorda-COM also announced affiliation partnerships with hospitals around the state of Utah.

Normally, the final 2 years of medical school focus on the clinical aspects of medicine and the day-to-day practices.

Not having a hospital of our own, its very important for us to be able to partner with existing facilities that have wonderful opportunities for our students to rotate in, said Dr. Michael Rhodes, Noorda-COM Associate Dean of Clinical Affairs.

These affiliations include Intermountain Healthcare, Revere Health, Utah Valley Specialty Hospital and more.

Students will have seven different rotations that include a number of different focuses at various hospitals. In the first week of these rotations, students will be on campus, where they will run through simulations prior to work in hospitals.

This allows the students to see a variety of different approaches when it comes to creating healthcare management systems and styles, Rhodes said.

This includes augmented reality, virtual reality and hologram patients in an effort to help the students be more prepared and helpful with the care teams at the hospitals.

These rotations will allow students to receive a diverse training in different focuses within medicine.

That gives a young student the opportunity to see the variety so that they can hone in on what it is they really want to be, what specialty they want to go into and what interest they really have, Rhodes said. By the end of those core rotations, theyll really know and get a good feel for what they want to do for the rest of their career and what they dont.

Another plus to the affiliations is that all of the sites are within 30 minutes of the campus. Dougherty added that in one of his previous jobs at a college, students were spread across 17 different states and left without much support from the medical school.

A close proximity to the school lets students receive help if they need it while being able to accomplish more and travel less.

As for the next step for the school, Dougherty said it will begin to pick the 90 students who will be a part of the inaugural class, which is expected to be a tough task.

Faculty are also working on creating the content for the courses, which includes four to seven minute pre-recorded videos. This curriculum can then be accomplished by the student at their own pace and at whatever time of day is most convenient.

Once these tasks are completed, among others, the school will be ready to welcome in its first students come the fall of 2021.

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Noorda College of Osteopathic Medicine gets pre-accreditation, announces affiliation partnerships with local hospitals - Daily Herald