by Michael Weiser

On the evening of Thursday, Aug. 18, the Centers for Osteopathic Research and Education held a dinner and award ceremony to welcome OU-COM’s third-year medical students to the clinical phase of their medical education and to recognize the teaching excellence of three OU-COM graduates. OU-COM students spend their third and fourth years — the final two years of medical school — based at one of the 13 teaching hospitals that comprise Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine’s CORE system. The “Welcome Dinner and Student Clinician’s Ceremony,” sponsored by The Arnold P. Gold Foundation, was hosted at the Ohio University Inn and officiated by Peter Dane, D.O., associate dean for predoctoral education.

Dane began the evening by bringing greetings from Dean Jack Brose, D.O., who could not attend the dinner.

Brose’s remarks included high praise. “I am extremely proud to send this class out to our hospitals. Our college gains its outstanding reputation in the medical community from the intelligence and hard work of its students. I have no doubt that the Class of 2007 will move our reputation up another notch.”

Dane noted the CORE’s recent milestone and the significance of the evening’s celebration.

“This year, the CORE celebrates its tenth anniversary,” said Dane. “We believe that it represents the heights to which medical education can rise.”

The CORE, created in 1995 as the Centers for Osteopathic Regional Education, was pioneered by OU-COM and in 1997 became the nation’s first accredited Osteopathic Postdoctoral Training Institution. The CORE has about 1,000 students, interns and residents in training on a yearly basis.

“Tonight, we are celebrating a transition for all of you,” he said. “It is a transition from the classroom to the clinic, it is a transition from novice to apprentice, and it is the next step in your journey toward becoming a master.”

J. Robert Suriano, Ph.D., representing the Gold Foundation, asserted that the profession of medicine has become less personal and more technology driven.

“It is important to reassert the personal humanistic side of medicine,” he said. “The side of medicine we all desire and need when we are patients: empathy, compassion, respect, altruism, integrity. Excellent care is not possible without these.”

“Much will change as you progress in your career,” he added. “What will not change is the meaning of the word patient. The word patient is not synonymous with diabetic, hypertensive or any other disease entity. But rather, it means a person — a person with a life history, with a past, with a family and with a cultural background.”

The keynote speaker for the evening, Levente Batizy, D.O., director of medical education at South Pointe Hospital in Cleveland, offered his observations on the past and future of medical education. His presentation, “CORE Competencies: The New Revolution in American Graduate Medical Education,” focused on the importance of professionalism in medical care.

“If you master professionalism,” Batizy said, “then you will be successful and you will be richly rewarded.”

“The need for true medical professionals,” he added, “who place the needs of their patients, society and their profession ahead of their self-interest has never been greater.”

Following the keynote address, three CORE hospital residents, Jean Rettos, D.O. (’04), (O’Bleness Memorial Hospital in Athens); Suzanne Morgan, D.O. (’04), (Doctors Hospital of Stark County in Massillon); and Larry Robinson, D.O. (’02), (Firelands Regional Health Center in Sandusky) were honored with The Arnold P. Gold Foundation’s Humanism and Excellence in Teaching Award. Each received a certificate, a specially designed gold lapel pin and a check for $250 from the foundation.

The trio also will be soon showcased on the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education Web site.