Your July 4 story by Tom Weber on Dr. Paul LaMarche was a fitting tribute to a man who has had a positive impact on medicine in Maine. However, it contained an error in implying that Maine does not have a medical school.

The University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine is Maine’s medical school — and has been so since 1978. In the last 14 years, the university has graduated nearly 900 osteopathic physicians, two-thirds of whom pursue training and careers in primary-care medicine, and 40 perecnt of whom end up in small, rural communities. More than any other medical school, it has supplied the physicians who pursue primary-care residency training and stay to practice in Maine. Since 1988, our school has supplied a significant number of graduates to Maine’s family practice training programs, including Eastern Maine Medical Center, where about one in four family practice residents have been our graduates.

Of course, there continues to be a need for more primary care physicians in rural areas of Maine. Our school’s mission is to help to fill that need, and we have undertaken an ambitious building program to increase our enrollment in order to respond to that obligation. By the year 2000 the University of New England College of Osteopathic Medicine will be graduating 100 osteopathic physicians yearly, the majority of whom will pursue careers providing primary medical care in Maine and throughout New England. Stephen C. Shannon, DO, MPH Dean, College of Osteopathic Medicine, University of New England, Biddeford