Foundation

"I am simply trying to teach you what you are; to get you to realize your right to health, and when you see the cures wrought here, after all other means have failed, you can but know that the foundation of my work is laid on Nature's rock." AT Still, Autobiography p. 288

I will teach my my patients how to facilitate their own healing. My hope is that they can find a safe, loving, non-judgmental space in which to heal.

Back to the books- block II exams start on Monday!

You are elected AOA President. What would be your platform; and how would you proceed to achieve the core priorities of your platform?

As your president, I will see to it that we affect real change in our osteopathic community, while improving the integrity of our profession. This change must come from the AOA, our nation-wide community of physicians, pre and post graduate medical education systems, and our students.

We in the AOA must collaborate with other osteopathic leaders, such as OPSC, to make sure our profession maintains osteopathic autonomy in the medical community. The recent merger of the Naturopathic Medicine Committee into the Osteopathic Medical Board of California (OMBC) is an example of the work we have to do to educate leaders of our country about osteopathic medicine. ABX420 was signed into law as part of the “urgent” budget process as of October 23, 2009, and allows naturopaths to sit in judgment over osteopathic physicians who come before the licensure board. In California, naturopaths are not trained clinically, cannot prescribe medications independently, and cannot perform surgery. The California state legislature saw osteopathic physicians equivalent to naturopaths, and it did not cross their minds that this kind of merger would possibly endanger patient safety. Part of my solution to this is to hold DO Day Nation-wide this year.

I am holding a meeting with the AOA leadership this month to plan our next DO Day effort, which will target the capitol of each state. We can educate state governments about osteopathic medicine and our role in health care reform. The state governments should know that osteopathic physicians are living advocates of more cost effective, preventative, and high quality health care. We will indicate the trends; osteopathic physicians are less likely to perform expensive procedures and more likely to treat the whole person by looking at the root of the problem. Osteopathic medicine effectively helps prevent chronic diseases like diabetes; the management of which comprises a significant amount of the health cost in this country. We will advocate that as we are physicians, it is important that we maintain our autonomy in licensing, practice, and legislative influence. We will ask for their support in our advocacy against ABX420. Our visit may even convince them find osteopathic physicians to care for their families.

In our political efforts, we will increase collaboration with the AAO to make sure that in our actions and advocacy, we have osteopathic principles and practice at heart. We will focus on the osteopathic core principles while educating politicians and the public about our profession. Osteopathic manipulative medicine sets our profession apart from allopathic medicine, and we need to show the public that this approach is beneficial for a population with increasing chronic health problems.

And finally, we cannot hope to maintain our autonomy as a profession or educate the public about osteopathic medicine unless we start with osteopathic medical education. We must make it easier for our schools to provide the best quality OMM education necessary so that future osteopathic physicians feel comfortable treating their patients with OMT. We can do this by increasing the amount of student fellowship positions at each school to one fellow per twenty students. Students will be able to get the personal attention they need with this increase in faculty. In addition to increasing numbers, we need to increase the quality of OMM knowledge with which we teach our students the theories behind osteopathic diagnosis and treatment. OMM faculty and fellows should be well versed in current osteopathic research to back the techniques they teach, and there should be an increase in OMM research efforts. We will provide grants to schools for faculty to initiate preliminary studies with their fellows and medical students. We will invest in a research-consulting firm to work with our principle investigators on maximizing the scientific validity of their studies. We need to produce more DO’s who use OMM in order for us to get the national recognition that we deserve, and we need to prove that our techniques produce real, reliable results.

I would also like to draft an equality resolution that indicates that the AOA is in support of equal opportunity for osteopathic physicians and students regardless of gender and sexual preferences.

Osteopathic physicians provide health care consistent with the needs of the average American family. We will propagate this message by advocating maintenance of our autonomy in the health care field, reinforcing the core principles in our osteopathic medical schools, and by increasing efforts to conduct scientifically sound osteopathic research. As your president, I will do everything in my power to help achieve these goals during my term. Thank you.

Given extensive resources, how would you realistically and effectively promote osteopathic medicine and the D.O. profession?

National osteopathic leadership, practicing osteopathic physicians, and medical students need to work together to effectively promote the osteopathic profession in our predominantly allopathic medical community. For several years, the AOA has tried an awareness campaign, and has invested money in opening up more schools. These efforts have not significantly improved public knowledge of our profession. If we change gears from expansion to quality improvement, we will increase opportunities for students to reach their full potential. When improvements are made to our educational system, quality osteopathic physicians will be the result, and our profession will thrive.

Let’s first start with improvement of our existing educational institutions. Increasing the quality of didactic and practical education during the first two years starts with investing in greater basic science material presentation. Each osteopathic school should be given the tools to start a summer program for the incoming class, where students can begin their biochemistry, genetics, and embryology curriculum. The same professors who teach this course should be recruited to teach these subjects during the school year. This thorough coverage of basic science should set precedence for the importance of mastering this material, and will boost board scores. OMM curriculum taught at each osteopathic school should be more standardized, so that the students at all schools are learning the same core techniques. Lab sessions can cover more than the basic techniques, but each school should be required to cover muscle energy, counter-strain, soft tissue, HVLA, facilitated positional release, ligamentous articular release, myofascial, and cranial osteopathy in depth. Coverage of these crucial techniques will give each osteopathic student an opportunity to determine what they want to practice on rotations and ultimately, which tools they prefer to use when treating patients.

Changes in the curriculum are essential to improving osteopathic medicine, but we also need to carefully screen the students who are accepted into osteopathic medical school. Each applicant should be carefully assessed to determine if he or she is truly open to osteopathic manipulation, and not just looking at osteopathic medicine as a backup. Each school should require their applicants to shadow osteopathic physicians, instead of just recommending it. Schools should recruit applicants who are interested in practicing rural primary care, as these people are likely to fill residency spots in rural areas, where there is high demand for health care of underserved communities.

In addition to ensuring dedicated applicants are chosen, and improving the first and second year education, we should invest in more clerkship opportunities for our third and fourth year students. Rotation opportunities should be expanded on the west coast and in major cities that have primarily MD residencies. The AOA and COCA should invest in a task force to prevent other schools from buying out osteopathic rotation slots.

In big cities, competitive allopathic primary care residency opportunities are continually increasing for osteopathic students as fewer allopathic students are choosing primary care. We need to give our DO students the tools to be accepted into these programs. When the best and brightest osteopathic students break barriers and start training at these powerhouse programs, the survival and growth of osteopathic medicine will be ensured. Expansion and improvement of Osteopathic Graduate Medical Education opportunities starts with education of the hospitals about what we do. One idea to better educate hospitals about OMM is to help them see it in action, and observe the real results. The AOA and AAO could help osteopathic graduates who enter allopathic programs open OMM Clinics in their respective hospitals.

Practicing osteopathic physicians nation wide can also help promote our profession by performing community outreach and service. CME credits and additional incentives should be provided for their effort. The goal would be to influence consumer choices and towards preventive, quality-based medicine. Physicians should be encouraged to become involved in city council and town hall events to expand knowledge in their respective communities.

Rather than advertizing through commercials and expanding in number, we should focus on improving the quality of physicians who enter the osteopathic profession, and increasing opportunities for osteopathic students to practice in the allopathic health care system. By improving osteopathic educational opportunities at our existing schools, infiltrating allopathic hospitals, and advocating at the community level, we can promote the values of osteopathic medicine to reach more people than ever before.

February 14, 2010: I'm waking up today.

Being a first year osteopathic medical student was wonderful and difficult. At first, I had a hard time with the life-style changes and the pace of class. The drinking from a fire hydrant analogy really does it descriptive justice. I was able to get through each day and feel satisfied with my work just by putting in my best effort. When I was having a bad day, I could just put myself on coasting mode until the next day. I had the excitement of knowing that I was finally heading down the path that would lead to me becoming a doctor, living my dream.

The second year of medical school has proved to be quite different. After an amazing summer filled with travel, family, and friends, I stepped back on campus to find that I was needed for my mentorship- by the first years and pre-meds. Now I find that coasting mode is not an option, because there just isn't enough time in the day for it. I have to study for classes and block exams, rapidly increase the amount of time I study for boards each day (I take step 1 in June), think more seriously about what field I want to go in to, research rotations, maintain my extra curricular activities (president of a club, and in charge of a group that volunteers at a clinic), etc! To top that off, I really want to have some time to relax, work out, eat well, and be a good girlfriend.

When I applied to osteopathic medical school, I knew that starting down this path would not be easy. I had two goals in life: #1 Teach people how to heal themselves and #2 Be a good person. There is no doubt that medical school will help me with #1, but if I don't figure out a way to be less distracted and chaotic, I am afraid that I will lose track of #2. I really like to try to live in the moment and life one day at a time, but at this point in my career there is still so much to plan for... and of course that is very anxiety provoking.

What lies ahead for me? I have two blocks left to take at school, followed by my board exams, which I am still scheduling. I have not yet completed the USMLE scheduling process. I am taking my COMLEX, the osteopathic step 1, on June 18th. I will be passing on my leadership positions at school to first years, and possibly taking on a National SOMA leadership position. I will start my 3rd year rotations on June 21st in the bay area and Eureka/Humboldt area, and I will start studying for step 2 shortly after. I'll schedule my 4th year rotations, including my showcase/audition rotations, take step 2, and then start my 4th year. Hopefully I will finish my showcasing rotations by December of my 4th year. Then the matches happen for residencies! I'll match into residency, take my step 3, graduate, and start my residency. By that time I'll be almost 28 years old.

I don't think anyone is going to read my blog, but I am going to keep it up- its a great exercise for me and who knows, it just might help someone.

Namaste

Robyn