Letter to Chairman of UNT Board of Regents

The following letter by Charles Hall, DO, TCOM graduate 1985

Chairman Smith:

I am responding to the letter just emailed to me concerning the establishment of an MD School across from the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine.   If in fact, you have more facilities for another 100 medical students, then they should be osteopathic medical students. Why? 

The faculty and education plan is already in place to train more osteopathic medical students who are trained to be far better at fulfilling the rural and urban medical needs of the Texas patient populations.  The Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine has received many awards verifying the acceptance and  fulfilling the challenge of providing the medical care of rural Texas, as well as the urban and metro areas. 

The osteopathic philosophy of truly being hands-on medical care  has been established and proven time and time again to be the finest, most excellent comprehensive form of medical care available.  DO’s, Doctors of Osteopathy, are trained in the osteopathic philosophy and learn osteopathic manipulative techniques which help treat, diagnose, and heal the body with less surgery and traditional medicines. Therefore, it is more affordable, safe, and quality medical care.  This is what the taxpayers of Texas want and The Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine has been delivering for decades – great dedicated osteopathic physicians to meet the health care needs of the fine people of this state.

You, yourself, have praised the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine for the many awards they have won.  You are already training the finest medical students – Osteopathic Medical Students – then why not continue that which has a long proven track record of graduating the finest medical students -- Osteopathic Medical Students -- in the state of Texas?!  You have stated you plan to jointly use some of the TCOM facilities and faculty (for the new MD school), which implies they can handle more osteopathic medical Students without cost increases to cover existing faculty and facilities. Fewer osteopathic faculty members will be needed for another expansion of 100 osteopathic medical students, on top of the 220 already planned for the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine.  The teaching standards and course material are already in place to train more of the most successful physicians in Texas-and that is osteopathic physicians.

You have ‘pledges’ for another 21.5 million for an MD school with an unproven track record versus the 40-year track record of a great Osteopathic Medical School in Fort Worth, Texas.  Take a small part of those pledges and you can easily add another 100 osteopathic medical students to the planned 220 by 2014.  Again, taxpayers demand the most medical care for their dollar, and continued expansion of the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine will continue to deliver just what those taxpayers expect.  Area hospitals want to expand their post-graduate physician training programs and by increasing the Texas College of Osteopathic medicine to a total of 320 students, this will easily meet their demands with an existing, award winning, long established medical program – the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine. 

I trained in 1984 at a fine pulmonary training hospital in Tyler, Texas, associated with the University of Texas -- MD – school system.  A long time world authority on medical microbiology stated that the best-trained and prepared medical students they receive for their student rotations come from the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine.  I live in central Texas and am starting my 25^th year of rural Osteopathic Medical practice in a small town of 1500. I am the only physician here.  About 15 miles away, is a well-known MD who has a subspecialty of Infectious Diseases.  He has stated more than once that the best-prepared and most well trained students are those that come from the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine.  The start-up and continued costs for maintaining a new medical school is significant and much higher than you state.  I respect your efforts to address the continuing needs of the healthcare of Texas.   Osteopathic Physicians are the most cost-effective award-winning physicians to produce.  Please do your best to continue to support the logical conclusions necessary to best represent the medical needs of the fine citizens of the great State of Texas.  The Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine has met and far exceeded the desires of the Texas legislature, in providing outstanding, affordable, and compassionate medical care!