OU-HCOM participates in the Tour for Diversity in Medicine

(ATHENS, Ohio – Sept. 24, 2012) The second annual Tour for Diversity in Medicine (TDM) features alumni and staff from the Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine (OU-HCOM), who will provide information and answer questions about OU-HCOM to prospective minority students.

OU-HCOM alumni Tyree M.S. Winters, D.O. (07), will be on hand at all the tour stops to answer questions. John Schriner, Ph.D., assistant dean for admissions, will attend the Fisk University visit on Tuesday, Sept. 25; Alicia Boards, assistant director of multicultural programs, will be at Central State on Friday, Sept. 28; and Jill Harman, M.Ed., director of admissions, will be at University of Michigan Dearborn on Saturday, Sept. 29, where Winters earned his undergraduate degree.

Last February, Winters traveled more than 1,000 miles by bus through the south for the inaugural tour in an effort to boost the percentage of minority students in medical and dental schools.

The initiative was started by two of Winters’ friends from his days in the Student National Medical Association (SNMA), Kameron Leigh Matthews, M.D., J.D., and Alden M. Landry, M.D., who were also fellow leaders in the association. They started the grassroots effort to “educate, inspire and cultivate future physicians and dentists of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds by forming local connections in order to fulfill a national need,” Dr. Matthews wrote in his blog.

“We’ve all remained close, and when [Landry and Matthews] said I had to be in the program, of course I had to say yes,” said Dr. Winters, a clinical assistant professor of pediatrics at the Wexner Medical Center at Ohio State University and pediatrician at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.

The group spent an entire day on each campus, taking time to “visit students on their home turf, motivate them by introducing them to young, enthusiastic physicians and dentists, and give them the information that they need to be successful,” wrote Dr. Matthews.

This year’s tour, Sept. 24 to 29, is making stops at the University of Michigan at Dearborn, Central State University in Ohio, Indiana University Bloomington, Kentucky State University, Fisk University in Tennessee and Georgia State University.

“We plan on doing it for the next five years, with our goal to branch out to take the tour to many other places and territories,” Dr. Winters said. Future tours may focus on Latino and Native American populations.
For more information on the Tour for Diversity in Medicine, visit: http://tour4diversity.org/