New Pocket Reference Guide Promotes OMM Fundamentals

A first-of-its-kind resource in osteopathic medicine

By Angelina Young

Third-year osteopathic medical students will have something new in their pockets during clinical rotations: OMM Quick Cards. Developed by the CORE Osteopathic Principles and Practices Committee (COPPC), this new pocket-sized, fold-out reference guide is designed “to facilitate the integration of the AOA core competencies into residents’ practice of medicine to improve the health and healing of patients,” according to COPPC members.

A card has been mailed to every third-year osteopathic medical student in the country in January.

Stevan Walkowski, D.O. (’89), chairman of COPPC, said the group had been working on a manual for third-year residents, when committee member Clay Walsh, D.O., clinical associate professor of OMM at Summa Western Reserve Hospital, recommended putting the information into a pocket-sized card that residents could easily keep with them and refer to as needed. 

Walkowski said the cards were the perfect solution to the committee members’ desire to create “something easy to use; a handy guide to keep close by.”

“The OMM Quick Card is a reference manual, not a solution-based manual,” Walkowski said. “In other words, it does not give solutions to problems, like ‘if this, then that.’ It is a reminder to students of the osteopathic principles that are important to think about on a day-to-day basis.” 

Walkowski notes that “nothing this ‘down and dirty’ has been seen in the field in the past,” and as far any of the COPPC members know, it is the only such card of its kind. The publication was designed by the OU-HCOM Office of Communication.

Soon the OMM Quick Cards will be distributed throughout the CORE and are slated to be given to all CORE residents, CORE faculty, program directors and DMEs, among others.

“My hope is that these cards become a helpful reminder for all students, residents, trainers, and practicing physicians to use OMM frequently when they are treating their patients,” Walkowski said. “I hope it serves as a refresher for OMM skills that need a little dusting off and a resource to think about using OMM on patients that they may not have considered in the past.”