On Saturday, Aug. 12, State Senator Joy Padgett will deliver the keynote address at the college’s annual Convocation Ceremony. The ceremony — which takes place at 11 a.m. in Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium on the university’s Athens campus — welcomes OU-COM’s incoming class of medical students.

OU-COM Dean Jack Brose, D.O., will serve as master of ceremonies at the 31^th Convocation. Welcoming the Class of 2010 to the University will be Associate Provost for Academic Affairs Martin T. Tuck, Ph.D.

The Class of 2010 is comprised of 108 students, of which there are 56 females and 52 males.

Almost one-quarter (26 of 108) of the class are minority students. Also, 11 of the class are from Southeastern Ohio. The class is 87 percent Ohio residents and 52 percent female.

According to the Office of Admissions, the Class of 2010 also has the highest science and total grade point averages of all OU-COM entering classes.

The class, said John Schriner, Ph.D., director of admissions, “is diverse and wonderfully talented. The spirit of these compassionate student doctors reflects OU-COM’s mission, and they will make a difference in our society as osteopathic physicians.”

Thomas Anderson, D.O. (’83), president of the OU-COM Society of Alumni & Friends; Victor Angel, D.O., president of the Ohio Osteopathic Association (OOA); and Robert Juhasz, D.O., a member of the American Osteopathic Association, will bring greetings from the osteopathic profession to the class. Christopher Manhart, a second-year student, will also address the incoming first-year students.

As in previous years, the Convocation includes the White Coat Ceremony, during which the members of the Class of 2010 receive their white coats. The White Coat Ceremony had in past years been held at the beginning of the third year of school for medical students and marked the transition to the clinical phase of medical education. Since 2001, OU-COM students receive white coats in their first year of medical school, an acknowledgment of the early clinical contact emphasized in the college’s curriculum.

Peter Dane, D.O., associate dean for predoctoral education, will preside over the White Coat Ceremony. The white coats donned during the ceremony are provided by the Ohio Osteopathic Foundation.

“The Convocation,” said Brose, “also affords our college the opportunity to award the Phillips Medal of Public Service, the college’s highest honor, to individuals who have made great contributions to health care, medical education and public service in the country and across the globe.”

The Phillips Medal is named for Jody Galbreath Phillips and her late husband, J. Wallace, both longtime friends of Ohio University. It has been awarded to outstanding men and women since OU-COM’s inception in 1976.

Keynote speaker Padgett is one of three recipients of the Phillips Medal. In addition to Padgett, this year’s recipients of the Phillips Medal are Alison Clarey, D.O., program director of the general surgery residency at Grandview Hospital and president-elect of the American College of Osteopathic Surgeons, and John Gimpel, D.O., National Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners’ vice president for clinical skills testing.

Among the past Phillips Medal recipients are former Ohio Gov. James Rhodes; former U.S. Sen. John Glenn; former Democratic presidential nominee Michael Dukakis, J.D.; Ohio First Lady Hope Taft; and William Anderson, D.O., surgeon, civil rights leader and past president of the American Osteopathic Association.

Padgett, the former director of the Office of Appalachia, spent 20 years in Ohio public schools as a teacher. Throughout her career as an elected official, she has been an outstanding advocate for the educational and economic needs of the residents of the 20^th Senate District, where she currently serves as state senator. Before being elected state senator she served as state representative for four consecutive terms in the Ohio House of Representatives. As a representative, she was a catalyst for the development and creation of the Foundation for Appalachian Ohio. In the Senate she has served as chairwoman of the education committee and vice chairwoman of the agricultural committee, as well as serving on the finance, financial institutions, and highways and transportation committees. Among her awards for public service are the Ohio Public Service Award and Bob Evans Humanitarian Award.

Clarey, a past president of the OOA, served as chief of staff for Grandview and Southview Hospitals in 1991 and 1992 and currently serves as program director of general surgery at Grandview, where she introduced new surgical techniques. A pioneering model for osteopathic physicians, she was board certified in general surgery in 1982 and was the only female osteopathic physician so qualified out of more than 30,000 osteopathic physicians. She was president of the Dayton District Academy of Osteopathic Medicine and is a fellow of the American College of Osteopathic Surgeons. In 1991 she was honored as YWCA Woman of the Year. She has also distinguished herself through her philanthropic activities: donating her surgical skills in medically underserved countries as Sierra Leone and Guatemala and promoting medical projects in Romania and Yugoslavia, as well as providing health care to the indigent of the Dayton community.

Gimpel, board certified by the American Osteopathic Board of Family Practice and a diplomate of the National Board of Osteopathic Medical Examiners (NBOME), has spent almost two decades advancing osteopathic medical education and medical knowledge. He has served on the editorial board of The Journal of the Pennsylvania Osteopathic Medical Association and as a peer reviewer for the American Family Physician and Journal of the American Osteopathic Association as well as serving with numerous professional organizations, including the Pennsylvania Osteopathic Medical Association and American Association of Medical Colleges. From 2002-2004 he was the director of predoctoral education and associate professor of family medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine, where he helped to create a competency-based, patient-centered curriculum. At the NBOME he directs the Comprehensive Osteopathic Medical Licensing Examination-USA Level 2-Performance Evaluation clinical skills test, which certifies osteopathic medical graduates for practice.

Also participating in the ceremony and presenting Phillips Medals will be Barbara Bennett, D.O. (’84); Keith Watson, D.O., associate dean for postgraduate education; and Juhasz.

Students will give tours of the college from 9 to 10:30 a.m. The tours leave from the lobby of Grosvenor Hall on the West Green. A luncheon at Boyd Dining Hall follows the ceremony.

For more information on the Convocation, contact Carol Blue, director of special projects, at (740) 593-2178.