By Mark Kemball
Spring is in the air and the Pacific Northwest air is filled with the hum of spinning hats.
Yes, it’s graduation. Thanks to the M.D. Class, this year tam o’shanters will join the exuberant flight of mortarboards and other assorted headwear that traditionally marks the annual migration of students from all of OHSU’s academic programs.
But data from our alumni records suggest that while our graduating students are indeed leaving their campus-based class and program families, they are joining a far wider family of OHSU alumni.
OHSU is proud to count almost 33,600 health care providers, scientists and other allied health professionals as alumni.
Oregon is home to the largest number: over 17,700 all told. Our graduates live in over 200 communities in the state and account for a significant percentage of Oregon’s healthcare providers. For example, one third of the registered physicians in Oregon received all or part of their training at OHSU. Together, Oregon, Washington and California account for almost 24,000, or 71 percent of alumni.
Despite our significant west coast presence, however, we are represented in every state in the U.S., and have at least one alum from each school in all but four.
Eighty-seven percent of OHSU alumni live in the United States. The remainder are to be found among 47 countries around the globe, ranging from Bangladesh and Brazil to Venezuela and Zambia.
So although we send warmest congratulations to our alumni as they move on to new challenges and different homes, we also have a message: almost wherever you go, you are unlikely to be very far from someone who has also received an OHSU education and who, like you, is using that knowledge to make a difference in their communities.
Congratulations to our newest alumni, and let us know how we can help you find your OHSU neighbors by emailing us at alumni@ohsu.edu.
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Mark Kemball and the alumni relations team are proud to count almost 34,000 dentists, nurses, physicians, researchers, technicians and other health professionals as OHSU alumni. The team strives to keep them all connected with the university, with its students and with each other.
