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Ohio University graduating health care workers early to help fight COVID-19

Students will be given their diploma almost a full month earlier than originally planned.

ATHENS, Ohio — Ohio University is helping to give their students graduating in medical sciences a head start.

The established university out of Athens announced today that students in the Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine and College of Health Sciences will receive their degrees on April 18, rather than the originally scheduled date of May 9 (Heritage students) and May 2 (nursing students).

“Thanks to prompt and decisive action by our governor and department of health, Ohio is recognized nationally and internationally as a model for its response to this public health emergency,” said President of Ohio University, M. Duane Nellis, “Ohio University is strengthening our state’s response, and I’m truly grateful to the Heritage College and the School of Nursing and the class of 2020 for their willingness to adapt quickly and to serve during these very challenging circumstances.”

The university is also bolstering that the majority of their graduating nurses and seventy-two percent of their 227 graduating physicians will be staying in Ohio to help on the frontlines of medical needs.

Ohio University also has more than 100 volunteers from their university stepping in to assist with the Ohio Board of Health.

The Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine has even created a new medical rotation for their third year medical students to jump in and help stop the spread of COVID-19.

Click here for our special coronavirus section.

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