RowanSOM grows again!

Second campus accredited to enroll students in July 2022

In what will be a major expansion in medical education in New Jersey, the Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine (RowanSOM) in Stratford has received approval from the Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation (COCA) to admit students at a second campus of the medical school beginning in July 2022.

Located at 1474 Tanyard Road in Sewell, RowanSOM’s second campus will initially admit 72 first-year medical students, all of whom will participate in the medical school’s innovative Problem-Based Learning (PBL) curriculum. When combined with more than 200 students in next year’s entering class on the Stratford campus, RowanSOM will be well on its way to become the largest medical school in New Jersey.

RowanSOM Sewell is located on the campus of Rowan College of South Jersey and the school’s expansion to this site was made possible through a unique partnership between Rowan University, the Rowan College of South Jersey and Gloucester County. 

“On behalf of RowanSOM, I would like to express my gratitude toward our President, Dr. Ali Houshmand and the President of Rowan College of South Jersey, Dr. Fred Keating, for their support of this important initiative which will enable our school to address the physician workforce shortage that is especially present in the southernmost counties of our state,” said Dr. Thomas Cavalieri, Dean of RowanSOM. “This significant milestone in our history will no doubt improve the quality of health care in South Jersey.”

Dr. George Scott, Professor of Family Medicine, will be the campus Associate Dean at this new location, which will house the medical school on the second floor of the 56,000 square-foot Rowan Medicine building. This new academic space will include more than a dozen PBL meeting rooms, research laboratories, classrooms that can accommodate more than 140 students, an osteopathic manipulative medicine lab, a medical library, and academic and administrative offices.

“This is an exciting achievement for our school, our university and for medical education in our state,” Dr. Scott said. “We have begun immediately to recruit students from New Jersey and across the country for our inaugural class. With our innovative curriculum, modern facilities and the ability to deliver clinical training in the same building as academic instructions, we offer prospective students an unparalleled medical education experience.”

Problem-Based Learning

Problem-Based Learning is a student-centered approach to curriculum, where clinical case presentations are the stimulus for acquiring the basic science knowledge needed to understand underlying mechanisms, as well as a means of developing clinical reasoning skills.

Dr. Victor Scali, a professor of Emergency Medicine at RowanSOM, is the Director of the Problem-Based Learning curriculum at the medical school and he points to the advantages of this approach to medical education.

“The PBL curriculum is ideal for highly motivated students who prefer self- guided learning rather than the traditional lecture based medical school curriculum,” Dr. Scali explained. “PBL utilizes small classes of eight students, guided by a specially trained facilitator. Students learn the foundational basic sciences and clinical medicine by solving real clinical cases. PBL students tend to develop critical thinking skills early in their pre-clerkship years that translate well to bedside clinical medicine during clerkships and residency training.”

The Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine was founded in 1976 and became part of Rowan University in 2013. Recognized as an elite provider of medical education, RowanSOM provides unmatched opportunities for New Jersey students. Nearly 70 percent of its most recent entering class are New Jersey residents and the 216 students in the entering class reflect the state’s diversity, with twenty-five percent who are underrepresented in medicine.