Message from the President

Funding the Future Supporting Student Success

John M. Ferretti, DO - President/CEO

Few educational institutions have undertaken so aggressively the mission of ensuring the educational success of its students as has the Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (LECOM).

As a leader in medical education, LECOM offers exceptional, innovative, and affordable education in osteopathic medicine, pharmacy, and dental medicine. From campuses in Erie and Greensburg, Pennsylvania and in Bradenton, Florida, LECOM provides studentcentered pathways to prepare the next generation of healthcare professionals.

The College has established itself as a national leader in medical education through studentcentered programs and by achieving a balance between excellence and affordability.

At LECOM Bradenton, the Problem Based Learning (PBL) pathway promotes critical thinking and clinical reasoning skills through a team approach. After four years of study and training, students are graduated with the Doctor of Medicine (DO) degree.

The School of Dental Medicine also offers a PBL stuient-centered learning approach that emphasizes extensive classroom learning and clinical training. Third-year students are treating patients in group practices at the Bradenton campus. As fourth-year students, they will train in community-based dental practices in Erie, Pennsylvania and in Defuniak Springs, Florida, thereby complementing their classroom learning while also providing dental care in communities in which many patients are unable to receive proper oral health care. The School of Pharmacy offers several options for students interested in the Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD) degree, including an accelerated three-year program offered in Erie. LECOM also offers an online PharmD program for students who require a greater degree of flexibility in their studies.

The Master of Medical Science degree provides additional pre-health education for students who require extra course work before beginning medical, pharmacy, or dental school. LECOM Bradenton also offers an online Masters in Health Services Administration (MHSA) Program designed for students who aspire to plan, direct, and coordinate medical and health service organizations. For healthcare professionals interested in teaching, LECOM offers the Master of Science in Medical Education via distance education. For high school students who are considering becoming physicians, pharmacists, or dentists, the LECOM Early Acceptance Program (EAP) allies with more than 150 colleges and universities to assist students in obtaining a head start upon their chosen healthcare path.

Just how has LECOM become a leader in medical education? The answer combines exceptional training with affordability, of course; and it encompasses an array of offerings, as noted above, all of which are focused upon the needs of the student. The student is at the heart of every objective undertaken by LECOM.

To provide a more complete perspective as to the student-centered LECOM mission, one need not look beyond that which LECOM values in its fundraising endeavors. Unlike other colleges or universities, LECOM does not conduct capital campaigns to raise funds for building projects or endowments. Rather, LECOM takes upon its shoulders the unyielding pursuit of funding the future of medicine – its students. scholars through and beyond their years of study. The annual LECOM Student Scholarship Auction is the chief generator of resources that are used to assist students in defraying and offsetting the cost of their medical education. Each year, LECOM distributes more than 4-million dollars in scholarship aid for deserving students. In a time during which there is an increased need for primary care physicians, the need for successfully graduated medical practitioners is felt now more intensely than ever before, and LECOM is committed to answer the call.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow rightly noted that, “The life of a man consists not in seeing visions and in dreaming dreams, but in active charity and in willing service.”

LECOM undertakes active charity in promoting the success of its scholars such that they will go forth into willing service.

Indeed, each meaningful act is a magnanimous undertaking for the future, endorsing the philanthropic mission of student success.

Through galas and golf tournaments, races, runs, and regional partnerships, LECOM is making a profoundly felt difference in the lives of LECOM scholars.

In this issue of the LECOM Connection, stories will familiarize you, the reader, with the two LECOM Student Scholarship Auctions, the LECOM Suncoast Challenge, 5Ks and races, and a few of the partnerships that have resulted in funding for our scholars.

At a time during which healthcare is fundamentally changing, LECOM continues to build healthier communities, one graduate and one patient at a time. Thus, it is up to us, heirs of a glorious past and a heritage of inestimable value, ever to commit ourselves to transmit the lamp of learning to future generations. LECOM support – our educational bounty – creates opportunities that change people, and people who change lives.