20110822_oru_osu_medical

ORU/OSU Center for Health Sciences help grads enter medical school

Oral Roberts University has signed an agreement with the Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences that will provide ORU students with a special opportunity to be admitted into OSU's Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine program.

Howard Barnett, president of OSU-Tulsa and OSU Center for Health Sciences, praised the partnership as a way to help meet the healthcare needs of the state.

 "OSU in Tulsa believes the early assurance agreement between ORU and OSU's medical school will ultimately increase the number of highly skilled physicians serving underserved areas, including many urban neighborhoods, and rural areas of Oklahoma," Barnett said. "OSU recruits from the brightest talent pool in the state and welcomes the opportunity to have more potential ORU students become OSU physicians."

ORU President Mark Rutland knows the students entering this program will be prepared to succeed.

"This partnership with the OSU Center for Health Science is one that I know will benefit both universities and Oklahoma," said Rutland. "The unique, whole person education at ORU will give those students entering this excellent D.O. program a foundation for success. This newly formed program will produce many fine physicians committed to improving the health of the state."

This "early assurance" program will grant conditional admission to OSU's medical school program provided ORU students perform well academically in core science courses, earn a high overall GPA and score at about the national level of the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT). Once these criteria have been met, the applicant will then be accepted upon satisfactory evaluations of the applicant's file and the interview process.

"ORU's whole person philosophy of body, mind and spirit is very compatible with the OSU-CHS philosophy of holistic medicine, and as such many ORU students are attracted to this D.O. program for their choice of medical school," said Dr. Hal Reed, Department Chair and Health Professions Advisor.

Several ORU students have graduated from the OSU medical school in the past decade. Currently, three ORU alumni are first-year medical students at OSU and three more ORU students have been accepted into next year's class of medical students.

"I believe this program will promote ORU's pre-health profession program as an ideal environment for Oklahoma students to obtain their pre-medical training," Reed said.

For more information on the pre-med track through ORU's College of Science and Engineering, call admissions at 800.678.8876 or go to /academics/cose/pre-med.php