Jamie Beckman

When Jamie Beckman started as a South Dakota State University student, he didn’t see himself serving as the national chair of the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine’s Council of Osteopathic Student Government Presidents.

Beckman, a Rapid City native and 2012 music and preprofessional health graduate from State, was initially going to teach music. When he arrived on campus for Senior Day, he was welcomed by The Pride of Dakotas and got to play with them in the stands for a football game. That experience sold him on attending South Dakota State.

Now a member of the Class of 2020 at the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine, Beckman’s path from music to medicine was not anything remotely resembling a straight line.

Beckman did not make the switch to a premedicine route until his junior year. He thought of working as an optometrist but a shadowing experience with Vance Thompson Vision in Sioux Falls had him thinking of becoming an ophthalmologist.

That led him to meet with Assistant Professor Greg Heiberger, who became his academic advisor.

After graduating with nearly 200 credits, Beckman then earned a master’s degree in physiology at the University of Arizona.

He then got a call from Heiberger, asking if he was interested in osteopathic medicine.

“Looking back, that call changed my life,” Beckman said, noting he had other career plans at the time. “However, a year down the road, I really took a look at osteopathic medicine and saw it tied into what I learned in physiology. I then called Greg back and said I was really interested. That first call with Greg is why I got into medical school.”

Once at VCOM, Beckman was elected as the president of the Class of 2020 and then was elected president of VCOM’s student government association. That position represents VCOM at the national level. It took a year at the national level before he felt comfortable there and he decided to run to be the national organization’s chair.

“I know the reason I’m where I am today is all due to attending South Dakota State,” Beckman continued. “I try to keep up with as much as possible and would love to have the opportunity to come back and talk to the premed and other preprofessional health students. I’d love to give back to the program that allowed me to fulfill my dreams of becoming a physician. Just knowing I had one person believing in me changed my life.”