Pikeville College - School of Osteopathic Medicine

Pikeville College School of Osteopathic Medicine (PCSOM) is the 19th school of osteopathic medicine in the country. PCSOM offers a four-year program which results in the degree of Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO). Osteopathic physicians have full practice rights in all 50 states and in many foreign countries. Osteopathic physicians can, and do, provide a full range of specialty and subspecialty services as practiced in tertiary hospitals, however, most DOs go into primary care in medically underserved areas. This accounts for the fact that while DOs make up only seven percent of the physicians in country they see over 18 percent of the patients.

To be considered for admittance at PCSOM students must have a baccalaureate degree, specific required science courses and take the Medical College Admission Test. PCSOM’s curriculum and course work is very similar to other medical school programs except in three major areas. The education is not so much different, as it is something more. PCSOM provides special emphasis in the following three critical areas:

1. Manual Medicine: Historically osteopathic medicine is based on a system of diagnosis and treatment where proper body structure predisposes proper body function, where restoring normal circulation leads to health and is based on the premise that the body has the ability to heal itself when it is in the proper structural alignment. The osteopathic medical student is taught to augment these rules of health by learning how to osteopathicly manipulate joints, bone and smooth tissue to restore natural structure.

2. Community and Behavior Medicine: The primary care doctor needs special training in communication with an in-depth knowledge of social values, regional customs and special information on the patient’s health care expectations and their lifestyles. In addition, a successful primary care doctor must have an appreciation of the business of medicine. The students must become lifelong learners and know how to access new information. To this end, 20 percent of PCSOM’s first- and second-year contact hours are in the area of community and behavior medicine.

3. Ambulatory Care: Most primary care medicine takes place outside of the hospital. Consequently students at PCSOM have six full months of ambulatory primary care medical training in doctors’ offices and rural clinics. This represents 30 percent of the student’s clinical training.

The first two years of training at PCSOM takes place mostly in the lab and lecture hall, covering the typical medical school disciplines, plus our special topics. Friday afternoons are spent in doctors’ offices, learning to take patient histories and doing physical exams. During the summer of their second year the students take two major full-time courses: medicine and surgery. These are intensive courses which will prepare the student to interact fully at the bedside or in an ambulatory care setting during the final two years of their medical school education.

The last two years of PCSOM’s program are the clinical clerkships. The student will rotate and work in various settings including: Family Practice, Appalachian Primary Care, Rural Clinic, ER, General Internal Medicine, General Surgery, Pediatrics OB-GYN, Psychiatry and Osteopathic Practice. The student will spend from one to four months at each of these sites depending on PCSOM’s requirements and the student’s level of interest. At least 90 percent of this clinical training will be completed in the Appalachian region.

In May of their fourth year the degree of Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine is conferred by PCSOM to all successful students. The students then begin their post-graduate training which traditionally consists of a one-year rotating internship followed by a two-year residency in the primary care area of the student’s choice. Presently, PCSOM is forming affiliations with hospitals in the Appalachian region to ensure adequate post-graduate training sites are available for PCSOM graduates so that they can and will stay in the area.

The curriculum, the courses, the work and the effort are all pointed to achieving one goal, the fulfillment of the school’s mission as stated by the Board of Trustees of Pikeville College:

“The mission of Pikeville College School of Osteopathic Medicine is to provide men and women with an osteopathic medical education that emphasizes primary care, encourages research, promotes lifelong scholarly activity, and produces graduates who are committed to serving the health care needs of communities in Eastern Kentucky and other Appalachian regions.”