Mission Statement

The Mission of the WCUCOM is to prepare men and women to become osteopathic physicians through an emphasis on primary care, lifelong learning, research and scholarly activities, service, including osteopathic clinical service, and graduate medical education. Using a community-based training model, the COM will educate and train graduates who are committed to serving the healthcare needs of all individuals, with special attention directed to the medically underserved and diverse populations of the state, region, nation and across the globe.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

Consistent with its mission and the osteopathic medical profession, the goal of WCUCOM is to provide high-quality medical education with the following objectives:

• Recruit and train students primarily from Mississippi and the Gulf South region in order to positively address the physician shortage in the region;
• Emphasize training in primary care through a high-quality, professional education program;
• Prepare students for lifelong learning through the involvement in scholarly activity;
• Provide an academic community in which the individual student is encouraged to develop his or her highest potential in scholarship, leadership, and service, and where the atmosphere will foster recognition of the infinite worth of the individual and acceptance of and respect for a variety of religious expression; and
• Engage faculty and students in research and scholarly activities in order to advance the body of existing knowledge in osteopathic medicine.

CORE COMPETENCIES

With a primary aim to train physicians for careers in primary care medicine, the WCUCOM curriculum is based upon core competencies in medical education as identified by the AOA and the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine (AACOM):

The first competency, Osteopathic Philosophy and Practices (OP&P), is the lynchpin competency that holds the other seven competencies together, with integration.