DR. DIXIE TOOKE-RAWLINS 

When Dr. Dixie Tooke-Rawlins helped found the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine in 2001, doctors were sparse in Southwest Virginia. VCOM’s mission was to change that unhealthy situation, and under Tooke-Rawlins’s watch, it has done just that. Osteopathic physicians take a holistic approach to medicine, but like M.D.s, they attend four-year medical schools and graduate from medical education programs. 

Although it’s based in Blacksburg, VCOM has branch campuses across the South, as far away as Louisiana. Many of its 177 graduates who live in Virginia now practice medicine in rural areas west of Roanoke. That’s had a big impact on quality of life, Tooke-Rawlins says.  

Named American Osteopathic Foundation’s Educator of the Year in 2011, Tooke-Rawlins is a 40-year physician and has long focused on rural health care, extending to her work at VCOM, where she recruits students from rural and disadvantaged counties. Nearly half of VCOM’s 2,200 students are from communities of fewer than 30,000 people, and 25% are racial and ethnic minorities.

She also was instrumental in establishing the Center for One Health Research in Blacksburg, a collaboration between VCOM and the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine, which performs research for issues that affect humans and animals.

Although VCOM graduated 472 physicians this year, population growth has meant that its “mission remains as pertinent today as when we began,” Tooke-Rawlins says.  “Our dream is to serve rural areas, and we live it every day.”

Read more about the 2023 class of Virginia Business Women in Leadership Award winners.