ORU/OSU Sign Partnership, Help ORU Grads Enter Medical School

NewsOn6.com

TULSA, Oklahoma -- Tulsa's Oral Roberts University announced Tuesday morning it has signed an agreement with the Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences that will provide ORU students with a special opportunity to be admitted into OSU's Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine program.

ORU President Mark Rutland knows the students entering this program will be prepared to succeed.

"This partnership with the OSU Center for Health Science is one that I know will benefit both universities and Oklahoma," said Rutland. "The unique, whole person education at ORU will give those students entering this excellent D.O. program a foundation for success. This newly formed program will produce many fine physicians committed to improving the health of the state."

Howard Barnett, president of OSU-Tulsa and OSU Center for Health Sciences, praised the partnership as a way to help meet the healthcare needs of the state.

"OSU in Tulsa believes the early assurance agreement between ORU and OSU's medical school will ultimately increase the number of highly skilled physicians serving underserved areas, including many urban neighborhoods, and rural areas of Oklahoma," Barnett said. "OSU recruits from the brightest talent pool in the state and welcomes the opportunity to have more potential ORU students become OSU physicians."

Oral Roberts University says several ORU students have graduated from the OSU Medical School in the past decade.

Currently, three ORU alumni are first-year medical students at OSU and three more ORU students have been accepted into next year's class of medical students.