Medical school of OU gets record $105M gift

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

A medical foundation has announced a record gift to an Ohio college: a $105 million award to help an Ohio University medical school turn out more primary care doctors and further its research into diabetes.

“This gift will transform lives,” said OU President Roderick McDavis of the money being given to the university’s College of Osteopathic Medicine by the Osteopathic Heritage Foundations.

The gift announced at symposium in Columbus on Saturday represents the largest private donation ever given to an Ohio institution of higher learning, surpassing earlier $100 million gifts to OU and Ohio State University, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.

The Columbus-based foundation has had a relationship with the college since the 1970s and made contributions totaling about $18 million over the last dozen years or so but had never before considered making such a large award, said president and CEO Richard Vincent.

“Given the urgent needs in health care, like an impending shortage of primary-care physicians and a burgeoning epidemic of diabetes and related illnesses, the time was right,” he said.

The ranks of traditional family doctors have been depleted by retirements and a tendency among younger physicians to specialize, said Dr. Jack Brose, dean of the OU medical college.

Some of the money will allow the OU college to develop teaching tools, offer scholarships and arrange student-loan repayment assistance to attract more students into primary care, a focus of the college. To further boost its class size, the school at Athens-based OU in southeast Ohio will establish an extension campus in the Columbus area.