Kansas City University

Founded in 1916 as the university's inaugural program, the College of Osteopathic Medicine confers the Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO) degree.

The College of Osteopathic Medicine is one of three medical schools in the United States to be recognized twice with the John Templeton Foundation's Spirituality in Medicine Curricular Award, which recognizes outstanding medical education curricula incorporating spirituality in medicine. KCU is also one of three osteopathic medical schools nationwide working to enhance future physicians’ cultural competency and eliminate disparities in health care through a grant from the American Medical Student Association.

The curriculum at KCU's College of Osteopathic Medicine consists of four years of structured training. Training includes didactic learning and standardized patient encounters. The first two years are organized in a modified systems, clinical application-based curriculum. Each system is repeated in years one and two. The first year focuses on normal structure and function, while the second year focuses on disease processes and clinical presentation.[27] Throughout years one and two, students have early clinical exposure in the curriculum through participation in Score 1 for Health, standardized patient encounters, and human patient simulation. During years three and four, students are matched with a preceptor or at a hospital/ward at a KCU-affiliated clerkship site in various specialties of medicine and surgery.

Students at KCU's College of Osteopathic Medicine also partner with local health organizations during the first and second year. First and second year students can apply to be student doctors and scribes, working with attending physicians, at KC Care Health Center, a local clinic providing health services to financially underserved populations in Kansas City, MO.[28]

Third and fourth year students complete clerkships at hospitals.

The school has an early matriculation program, called the Partners Program, with several undergraduate institutions. In this program, students can apply to KCU in their sophomore year of college and be accepted by their junior year.

The College of Osteopathic Medicine offers dual-degree programs including a DO/Master of Arts in Bioethics and a DO/MBA in Health Care Leadership, which is offered through a partnership with Rockhurst University’s Helzberg School of Management.[29] Dual-degree students complete both programs in four years and graduate with other members of their KCU class.[30]

The College of Biosciences was established in 2005 and currently offers two degrees including a Master of Science of Biomedical Sciences and a Master of Arts in Bioethics.

KCU's Clinical Psychology Doctoral (PsyD) Program is a five-year, practice-oriented program. Students are exposed to a broad base of discipline-specific knowledge and trained in profession-wide competencies set by the American Psychological Association. KCU offers the only PsyD program in Missouri or Kansas.

KCU is in the process of building a College of Dental Medicine on the KCU-Joplin campus, scheduled to open in 2022.[8]

Kansas City University (KCU) Administration Building

The KCU campus is located on a 23 acres and consists of 13 buildings.[6]

The Administration Building, the prior site of Children's Mercy Hospital, houses the administrative offices and support facilities.[31]

The Annex Building consists primarily of classroom space. The D'Angelo Library opened in the spring of 2011 and includes a learning resources center, collection and reference rooms, several training and conference rooms, an audio-visual/multimedia room, a special collections room, and group study rooms and numerous offices for library support personnel. The library was named for Vincent D'Angelo, D.O. (class of 1957) and his wife, Cleo D'Angelo.[32] The Leonard Smith Hall houses more than 50 individual and small-group study rooms, a computer lab, student lounge, and a Bioethics classroom. The Mary Lou Butterworth, D.O., Alumni Center is a meeting center for students, faculty, and alumni.

The Dybedal Center for Research is the focus of research activities at KCU. The 45,000-square-foot (4,200 m²) center is equipped for Biosafety Levels I and II research and includes more than 20,000-square-foot (1,900 m²) of basic science laboratories. Opened in 2004, the Dybedal Center includes an 8,000-square-foot (740 m²) clinical research center, the only adult academic clinical research center in Kansas City that conducts Phase I-IV studies.[32]

The Kesselheim Center for Clinical Competence was completed in 2006 and provides a facility for patient simulations for first and second year medical students, both human "standardized patients" and technological simulations.[33]

The Strickland Education Pavilion opened in 1996 and houses anatomy and OMT laboratories a 250-seat auditorium, a cafeteria, and meeting rooms.

The Student Activities Center, which opened in early 2011, includes a student lounge, Common Grounds Cafe, meetings and conference rooms, campus store, a multi-dimensional fitness center with cardiovascular and weight training equipment, an aerobics facility, and game room. The building is connected to the Academic Center, which was formerly the Weaver Auditorium, a 1,500-seat auditorium, which opened in 2007. The Academic Center houses two lecture halls with a combined seating capacity of more than 600.[34]

Kansas City University (KCU) Joplin Farber-McIntire Campus

The Center for Medical Education Innovation (CMEI) is a 56,000-square-foot building that opened in Fall 2020, providing medical students simulated clinical experiences using virtual reality and augmented reality technologies. CMEI also houses ICU simulation sites, medical robots, 22 standardized patient rooms, and a 70-bay lab for physical diagnosis, and osteopathic manipulative medicine (OMM).[35][22][36]

KCU enrolled its first class at the KCU-Joplin campus, in Joplin, Missouri, which began classes in the fall of 2017.[37]

A new College of Dental Medicine is currently under construction at the Joplin campus, and is scheduled to open in Fall 2022.[8]

The KCU-Joplin campus features a 150,000-square-foot building on approximately 40 acres of land.[38]

Of KCU osteopathic physician alumni, about 70 percent practice primary care medicine, and 40 percent practice in rural settings.[43]

• Alan Bates, an Oregon politician.
• Earle Haas, osteopathic physician and inventor of the tampon with an applicator, marketed as "Tampax."
• Reef Karim, writer, host, television personality, and medical advisor for several movies and television shows.
• Joel Weisman, one of the first to identify AIDS.
• Phog Allen, an American basketball and baseball player, coach of American football, basketball, and baseball.
• Leonard Calabrese, is credited with being one of the early pioneers of HIV research. Currently a physician at the famed Cleveland Clinic, he received a $3 million grant in 2010 to continue his research.
• Stephen Typaldos, an osteopathic physician who developed the Fascial Distortion Model, a type of osteopathic manipulative medicine.
• Jim Neely, Republican legislator in the Missouri House of Representatives.[44]
• Karen J. Nichols, former medical school dean at Midwestern University, and chair of the Board of Directors of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education.
• Scott Ransom, a Partner in the Health & Life Sciences Advisory with Oliver Wyman; past President of the University of North Texas Health Science Center.