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Duquesne University names leader of planned medical school | TribLIVE.com
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Duquesne University names leader of planned medical school

Megan Guza
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Megan Guza | Tribune-Review
Dr. John Kauffman following the announcement he was chosen as founding dean of Duquesne University’s planned school of osteopathic medicine, Nov. 20.
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Megan Guza | Tribune-Review
Dr. John Kauffman takes the stage after being announced as the founding dean of Duquesne University’s planned school of osteopathic medicine.
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Megan Guza | Tribune-Review
Duquesne University officials announced Dr. John Kauffman as the founding dean of the university’s planned medical school on Wednesday, Nov. 20, 2019.

Duquesne University officials chose a doctor already familiar with building a medical school from the ground up to head the university’s planned college of osteopathic medicine.

Dr. John Kauffman helped found Campbell University’s medical school, the Jerry M. Wallace School of Osteopathic Medicine, in 2011. He’s been with Campbell, located in Buies Creek, N.C., ever since.

“Duquesne is an outstanding university with a national reputation, so the opportunity to build a medical school at a school at this level is very exciting,” Kauffman said. “I love to start projects. I love to build things. I really like that idea of starting with a blank sheet of paper and really dreaming up.”

Duquesne President Ken Gormley said the shortage of primary care doctors is only projected to get worse over the next decade. Kauffman and the university’s medical school will address that head-on, he said.

“(Kauffman) knows what it takes to build a college of osteopathic medicine from the ground up,” he said.

Those shortages are felt most in rural and other underserved areas. An osteopathic medical school is a remedy for that, Kauffman said.

“The traditional medical school model is university-based, university hospital-based,” he said. “It’s a brilliant model for training world-class researchers and sub-specialists – not as successful in training primary care docs who will be out in the community.”

Part of Kauffman’s program at Campbell involved medical students living in disadvantaged communities. During their third and fourth years of medical school, they would be based out of a hospital, living in that community.

University officials aim to have the school constructed on Forbes Avenue near the Power Center by late 2022. They anticipate their first class of medical students to begin in the fall of 2023. The first year’s enrollment will be 75 students in keeping with accreditation standards.

Enrollment by the third year will be 150, with the final goal being a class size of about 600.

Kauffman was born in Altoona and grew up in New Castle. He attended Allegheny College and the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.

Prior to landing at Campbell, he held several positions with the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine, where he boosted the number of residency positions from 40 to 280.

From 2001 to 2006, he worked for the University Hospitals of Cleveland, where he created university-based osteopathic residencies in dermatology and pediatrics and community-based residencies in family, internal and sports medicine.

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