Medical agility: Amy Miyoshi, D.O.
Former competitive figure skater Amy Miyoshi now dedicates her career to improving women’s health

By Anita Martin

Not long after learning to walk, Amy Miyoshi, D.O. ('08), hit the ice. She started figure skating lessons at the tender age of three, and competed in the National Figure Skating Championships while earning her bachelor’s at the University of Michigan. On June 7 she will receive her Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine degree.

Although Miyoshi had begun considering the doctor’s path in the third grade, her skating experiences prompted her to explore osteopathic medicine. During her last year at Michigan, she traveled to Dallas to watch a friend compete in the U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

“He’d been having chronic back pain forever, and nothing seemed to help,” Miyoshi says. “This was one of the first years that they invited a D.O. to the national competition. They treated him everyday with OMM (osteopathic manipulative medicine), and he said he’d never felt better in his life.”

Miyoshi followed her curiosity to OU-COM, whose “learning-centered philosophy” resonated with her. “One of the things I really liked about OU-COM is that they try hard not to make it a competitive environment,” she said.

That may seem contradictory for a nationally competitive figure skater, but Miyoshi’s skating coach taught a similar philosophy. “She wanted me to just perform better for myself, so I was my own biggest competitor. OU seemed like a good continuity to that.”

A natural scholar, Miyoshi took a year off before medical school to conduct orthopedics research at the National Institutes of Health. She enrolled the following year at OU-COM, craving the “human connection” of patient care.

One such human connection diverted Miyoshi’s path from orthopedics to her current passion, obstetrics and gynecology. Halfway through her third year of medical school, Miyoshi worked at the Community Action Organization of Scioto County, Inc., which provides care to local patients without insurance or Medicaid eligibility.

“I treated a woman there who had one child and another on the way, and she was begging for food,” Miyoshi says. “I talked to her about different options she has to help her … I realized that with ob/gyn, I get a lot of patient interaction, I can do both primary care and surgery, and I can offer women more than they think they have.”

Miyoshi will began her obstetrics and gynecology residency this year at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn. She’s hung up her figure skates for the time being, but she plans to eventually reconnect to the sport as a coach, judge and OMM practitioner.