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.
- 30 -
News for
the week of Aug 22 –
Aug 27
