Friday, April 4, 2025
4/4/2025
Community Project Funding/Congressionally Directed Spending - Construction - The proposed project is Duquesne University’s new College of Osteopathic Medicine. The project aligns with the Commonwealth’s jobs-focused approach targeting the key growth sector of healthcare, medical research, and education. Unique from other medical schools within the Pittsburgh region, DUQCOM will take a forward-looking approach to how the region trains physicians. Our graduating doctors will be diverse, knowledgeable, and compassionate caregivers, who will be interested in practicing in the areas in which they call home. Because physicians tend to remain in the areas in which they are trained, especially where they serve their residencies, the University is building a network of urban and rural health provider partners across western Pennsylvania and other neighboring states, focusing especially on underserved communities. This 80,000-sq. foot facility will be located on Forbes Avenue directly across from Duquesne’s campus, providing a highly visible home for the College. The University is in the process of implementing the design developed by a nationally recognized architectural firm, with construction underway on main facility and slated to be completed by December 15, 2023, with classes beginning in July of 2024. Our holistic approach to the building design includes areas for formal classroom, experiential, and immersive learning; including advanced simulation technologies, augmented reality anatomy labs, maker space, and examinations suites, as well as areas for student interaction and academic administration. We also will renovate 20,000 square feet of existing space on campus to facilitate interdisciplinary training of future physicians alongside other healthcare provider education programs on the Duquesne campus such as nursing, pharmacy, physician assistant, physical therapy, occupational therapy, athletic training, and others. This renovated space will establish a complementary health sciences library, improve the University’s Center for Student Wellbeing, and optimize the use of current classrooms and labs across campus. The College is expected to be one of the most forward-looking medical schools in the country, addressing the urgent problems facing medicine today: a shortage of doctors in primary care disciplines; a system of pervasive disparities in health care, by racial and socioeconomic dimensions and in underserved urban and rural communities; and a lack of diversity in the medical profession. It is these communities—in Allegheny and Westmoreland Counties, throughout the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and across the nation—that COM will serve. Because these communities suffer disproportionately from poverty, low education and employment levels, and other negative social determinants of health, they also have the greatest unmet health care needs. The COM will enhance and expand the work of Duquesne’s Center for Integrative Health (CIH), which holistically addresses the health needs and social determinants of health in underserved communities. The impact of CIH can be directly seen, for example, in the significant reduction in the number of local children with uncontrolled asthma. The foundation developed through CIH, along with an admissions process that emphasizes diversity and a curriculum focused on training students to practice in primary care disciplines and in underserved urban and rural communities, will result in increased access to high-quality health care and decreased morbidity and mortality among these communities. The College is projected to have an equally beneficial impact on the economic wellbeing of southwestern Pennsylvania through sizable job creation; annual economic output; and annual value from labor income, property income, and taxes. Supporting COM’s overall moveable equipment costs, these funds will help create the infrastructure needed to establish a program of excellence in holistic, service-oriented medical training.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).