More than 150 medical students began classes Aug. 5 at the new Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine in Dothan.
Built in conjunction with Dothan’s Southeast Alabama Medical Center, the non-profit school has been in the dreaming stages for nearly a decade and in serious planning stages at least half that long.
State health planners hope the new school will help lure students who will stay and practice in areas that don’t have enough doctors.
The school hoped to draw 40 percent of its first class from Alabama. Final statistics are in now, showing that 42 of the 162 students hail from Alabama, with more than 46 percent from Alabama, Florida and Georgia and well over half from the Southeast. Eleven students in the inaugural class come from the Wiregrass.
Text by Nedra Bloom
