Three days a week, Dr. Robin Richardson practices urgent care for Providence Health, while the other two days he spends on a passion far less profitable: primary care for more than 2,000 people.

I have one family where I take care of four generations. Its just a good feeling, he said of his family practice in Southeast Portland.

Richardson is one of dozens of Oregon osteopathic physicians who rallied to help a new medical school get its footing in Lebanon. Called the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific-Northwest, the new school has completed its first year.

Its the states second mainstream medical school after Oregon Health & Science University, and could help fill a wave of demand for primary care physicians caused by federal health reform.

The college has helped revitalize the former lumber town of 15,000 by leasing a 54,000-square-foot brick building from Samaritan Health Services, just across from Lebanon Community Hospital. COMPs main branch, in Pomona, Calif., has sent graduates for residencies at the hospital for years.

Now Richardson and other local doctors give occasional lectures, oversee students during their residencies and interview prospective new students once a month.

The school has energized Oregons osteopathic physicians who lacked a place to connect after Portlands Eastmoreland Hospital, with its focus on osteopathic medicine, shut down nearly a decade ago, says John Pham, an osteopathic physician from Portland who serves on the colleges faculty. Its like any small culture. We all help each other and we want to see each other succeed. I think its different from the MDs there are so many of them.

Osteopathic medicine started as a holistic offshoot of traditional medicine, but gained acceptance by the U.S. medical establishment long ago. Yet doctors of osteopathy, or DOs, remain a minority about 625 in Oregon versus 10,000 MDs.

The college hopes to start changing that and, along the way, provide new doctors where theyre most needed. My goal is 80 percent of our grads going into primary care, Richardson said.

About 107 students, 56 of them male, signed up for the schools inaugural class. Only two students took a leave of absence and didnt finish the year. It was due to personal reasons, not performance, says Paula Crone, the schools associate executive dean. Theyve already selected the class that starts in August.

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Oregon school for osteopathy has strong start