Lebanon donates portion of library to COMP Northwest

The city of Lebanon, Ore. will set aside a portion of its library to establish a medical library for the College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific Northwest Campus. The medical library will be a vital resource for COMP Northwest students.

In appreciation, COMP Northwest will donate $10,000 to the Lebanon Public Library. The check will be presented to John Hitt, Lebanon city administrator, at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Medical Library on July 11, 2009.

Western University of Health Sciences’ College of Osteopathic Medicine of the Pacific (COMP) broke ground June 23 for its Northwest Campus at Samaritan Health Services’ (SHS) Health Sciences Center, establishing a permanent home in the Northwest.

Starting in the summer of 2011, 100 students will begin their osteopathic medical education in the 54,000-square-foot state-of the-art facility. DOs follow a "whole-person" approach to medicine and are fully qualified physicians licensed in all 50 states to prescribe medication and perform surgery.

Planning for the campus began more than two years ago, and builds on the five-year success of the Northwest Track program. The program – which draws from six Northwest states – presently trains osteopathic medical students for the first two years at WesternU’s main campus in Pomona, CA, then returns them, for their two clinical years, to teaching sites around the Northwest. The new campus will allow all four years of COMP training to take place in the Northwest.