Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine Ranked in Top 50 Medical Schools Nationwide
The University of North Texas Health Science Center’s Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine was ranked among the top 50 medical schools in primary care this year, according to recently released rankings from U.S. News and World Report.This is the fifth year in a row that TCOM has been ranked in the top 50 medical schools in the United States.
“In the last five years, we have garnered national recognition for success in medical education with leading-edge efforts in curriculum reform, the use of medical simulation for training and a unique rural track program to train primary care physicians for rural Texas,” said Marc B. Hahn, DO, dean of the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine.
The ranking for 2007 was up again, with TCOM placing 28th in the nation for primary care among medical schools. Expanding the number of affiliated residency programs and continuing efforts to maintain state of the art programs in medical education for primary care helped move the medical school into the top 30 again, Dr. Hahn said.
“In addition to our undergraduate medical education initiatives, Fort Worth’s medical school continues to work in partnership with Plaza Medical Center Fort Worth’s primary care residency training programs in family medicine and internal medicine,” Dr. Hahn said. “In addition, TCOM faculty oversee the local graduate medical education programs at John Peter Smith Hospital in orthopedics, obstetrics/gynecology and psychiatry. TCOM also has affiliations with other primary care graduate training programs throughout Texas.”
The Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine saw more than 77 percent of its graduates enter primary care programs between 2002 and 2005. The other two Texas medical schools ranked in the top 50 for primary care, Baylor College of Medicine and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, had 45.6 percent and 44 percent respectively of their graduates enter primary care in that period.
“Our focus on primary care has continued to be recognized both locally and on a national basis,” Dr. Hahn said. “As part of our mission, we continue to maintain the focus to provide Texas and the nation with much-needed primary care physicians. We will continue this high level of service while expanding into other needed areas of medical care.”
Each year, U.S. News ranks professional-school programs in business, education, engineering, law and medicine. The rankings are based on expert opinion about program quality and statistical indicators that measure the quality of the school’s faculty, research and students.
To gather the opinion data, U.S. News and World Report surveyed deans, program directors and senior faculty to judge the academic quality of programs in their field on a scale of 1, which was marginal, to 5, which was outstanding. Professionals who hire new graduates were also surveyed for the rankings.
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