by Jennifer Kowalewski

On Saturday, June 3, 2006, at 10 a.m., commencement exercises for OU-COM will be held at Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium. The members of OU-COM’s Class of 2006, the college’s 27^th graduating class, will receive doctor of osteopathic medicine degrees at the commencement ceremony, held separately from Ohio University’s general graduate commencement.

The class is composed of 104 members — 61 men and 43 women — which includes 27 minority students. There are 16 residents of Southeastern Ohio in the class.

Sister Anne Brooks, D.O., medical director of the Tutwiler Clinic and a sister of the Order of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, will be this year’s keynote speaker.

Sister Brooks, a 1982 graduate of Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine, and three other sisters from the Order founded the Tutwiler Clinic, located in the Mississippi Delta, one of the nation’s poorest regions, in 1983. Founded on the mission of providing holistic health care to all, regardless of their ability to pay, the clinic has become a community health system that sees between 7,000 and 9,000 patients a year. Brooks and the Tutwiler Clinic have earned national recognition and been featured on a segment of CBS’s 60 Minutes.

Sister Brooks also is a clinical associate and preceptor for medical schools across the nation and a clinical instructor for nurse practitioner students in Alabama and Mississippi. In 2005 she was named one of four physicians to receive the American Medical Association Foundation’s Pride in the Profession Award. She also is a recipient of Michigan State University’s Distinguished Alumni Award.

Ohio University President Roderick McDavis, Ph.D., will act as presiding officer, while Larry Schey, M.B.A., a member of the university’s board of trustees, will convene the commencement. Also speaking at the graduation will be Shannon Campbell, representing the Class of 2006; Robert Juhasz, D.O., board of trustees, American Osteopathic Association; Victor Angel, D.O., president-elect, Ohio Osteopathic Association; and Thomas Anderson, D.O. (’83), president of the OU-COM Society of Alumni and Friends and a member of the university’s Alumni Association Board of Directors.

OU-COM Dean Jack Brose, D.O., will announce the outstanding student award recipients, including the Osteopathic Heritage Award, Dean’s Award, Family Practice Award, Specialty Medicine Award, Obstetrics and Gynecology Award, Pediatrics Award, Geriatric Medicine/Gerontology -Ohio Department of Aging Award, Social Medicine-Medical Humanities Award, Biomedical Science Award and the Centers for Osteopathic Research and Education site awards.

Following Brooks’ address, Provost Kathy Krendl, Ph.D., will present the Class of 2006 and President McDavis will preside over the conferral of degrees. Brose, who will hood each graduate, said that the commencement exercises always fill him with great emotion.

“Graduation is an emotional experience for me; it always has been,” says Brose. “I am always moved by watching medical students walk to the stage as laymen and return to their seat as physicians. I consider it an enormous honor to hood our new physicians, administer the Osteopathic Oath and be the first to call them ‘doctor.’

“This is a special class for me, because this is the first class that I greeted as dean. They’ve been an excellent class, one of the best academic classes we’ve ever had in terms of their performance before starting medical school and their performance here, which has been outstanding.”

Following the conferral of degrees, Brose will lead the class in reciting the Osteopathic Oath, which will be followed by the singing of Alma Mater, Ohio.