Reach for the Stars and ‘Dig On’

Our 28th FSACOFP Annual Conference, July 30 - August 3, was quite an event for all! More than 400 physicians were registered, and the lectures and exhibitions were well attended. A long list of excellent speakers engaged everyone all week, with the lectures even being broadcast in the exhibition hall. Fun events like the sunrise fun run/walk, children’s story time, chef’s cooking demonstration, s’mores party and pitch ’n putt golf all added to the lighter side. The first Dean’s Cup Challenge resulted in friendly competition between our two schools—LECOM/Bradenton and NSUCOM—with LECOM/Bradenton taking the first trophy, sponsored by Randy Shuck, DO. We tried changing the events a bit this year, with our Friday business luncheon meeting including the presidential inauguration, speeches and awards, and our Saturday evening president’s reception allowing everyone to freely socialize, with dinner and dancing.

Dr. Randy Shuck, our now immediate past president, lectured, ran the meetings, made everything run smoothly in 100 different ways and was a constant source of counsel and support to me. Randy, thank you for all the years you have worked for the profession and the organization, especially this last year as president; you have and deserve a special place in our hearts. Many thanks go to our entire board for all of the time and expense that they volunteer for all of us, and we welcome our newest members as well. All FSACOFP members should feel free to participate, and we welcome your positive suggestions. Our convention committee of Drs. Bellingar, Gross, Cimerberg and James worked tirelessly and deserve a long and loud applause. Dr. Bellingar was deservedly presented with the 2008 Physician of the Year Award. Larry Bodkin and his staff worked very hard day and night to make it all happen, and we thank them and extend our love and condolences to the Bodkin family on the passing of Larry’s mother that week.

We here in the FSACOFP partner with the American College of Osteopathic Family Physicians (ACOFP), the American Osteopathic Association (AOA), the Florida Osteopathic Medical Association (FOMA) and the Florida Academy of Osteopathy (FAO); we were honored to have the presidents of every one of these organizations at our conference, and we appropriately align ourselves with the agendas of these organizations and their great leaders. AOA President Carlo DiMarco, DO, and ACOFP President Ronnie Martin, DO, FACOFP dist, are a joy to talk with and get to know. As you all know, I am active in every one of these state and national organizations. I got the “Triple Crown” this year and am president of the FSACOFP, FAO and FOMA Dist. 9. Whether you are a student, intern, resident, physician or family member, get involved, be involved and stay involved in our osteopathic organizations. These organizations support us, so we should support them. We offer our services to you, the members and the leaders of these wonderful state and national organizations.

Our agenda includes responding with our national and state osteopathic organizations to the political challenges ahead of us, increasing membership, increasing our board membership, enhancing our annual conference, moving our conference to a new site next year and then returning to the Hyatt the following year, increasing and enhancing osteopathic rotations and graduate medical educational opportunities, being responsive to our students/interns/residents, continuing to sponsor them at our state conference and the annual ACOFP conference, enhancing our newsletter and website, following up on our 501c3 nonprofit foundation status, refining and implementing our video conference call capability, and implementing our Affiniscape capabilities.

Our ACOFP has Advocacy, Education and Leadership as its brand.

Advocacy: We will address issues of Medicare and Medicaid reform, medical liability reform, the Medical Home concept and the Patient Centered Primary Care Collaborative (a collaborative between physicians, employers and consumers groups).

Education: When we’re talking about osteopathic education, then Osteopathic Principles and Practice (OPP) should be at the head and the heart of every educational activity, from student to intern and resident to post-graduate CME programs. A major thrust of Dr. DiMarco’s AOA presidency will be osteopathic graduate medical education advocacy and research, taking us from good to great. Dr. Martin and the ACOFP are examining ways to maintain and increase our residency positions as well as certificates of added qualifications. Drs. Randy Shuck and Greg James are opening up new family practice residency positions as well as rotations for students, as we speak. Our two Florida super deans at NSUCOM and LECOM/Bradenton embody and maintain the highest quality and standards in medical education anywhere, and this is reflected in their osteopathic emphasis on primary care and the quality and passion of their students. Our deans, including Dr. “Dean” Martin, inspire us to work with them and for them.

Leadership: Our osteopathic leadership is blessed with, filled with and fueled by the best and the brightest family physicians in America, representing a wide range of knowledge, experience and expertise, and is incredibly active throughout the United States and Florida. Our FSACOFP members are active in numerous important osteopathic boards, committees and organizations, both statewide and nationally. I have often said that a significant portion of the osteopathic leadership in the country is right here in our FSACOFP. I have always seen myself as a bridge-builder. At the recent AOA House of Delegates meeting in July, I had the pleasure of talking with Nancy Nielsen, MD, president of the AMA; Ed Langston, MD, former chairman of the board of the AMA and candidate for president of the AMA (he is an associate member of the AOA and a family physician); and Jim Deering, DO, who is on the board of the AAFP and will in the upcoming year be the first DO to run for president of the AAFP. The potential benefits of collaboration and cooperation are enormous.

Primary care physicians, family physicians being the majority, have historically held the answers to the challenges we face and will evolve to an even more important role in the near and far future. Who but primary care physicians, or as I like to say—primary core physicians—are the foremost advocates for patients? A.T. Still, MD, DO, was the original, first and consummate family physician. With our physicians’ efforts and our patients’ support, understanding and blessings, our combined energies and voices can accomplish our combined needs, issues and agendas.

Osteopathic medicine is the finest healthcare philosophy the world has ever known, and we osteopathic mentors must emphasize its value. Our approach is based on good science and good philosophy, on evidence-based practice and practice-based evidence.

We must emphasize and highlight the rewards of being an osteopathic family physician: our key role in managing, integrating and guiding patient care; the honor and privilege of participating and sharing the health and welfare of entire families over generations; generating relevant new knowledge through practice-based research; intellectual stimulation from the wide variety of scope of family practice; lecturing and teaching a new generation of students/interns/residents as well as one’s physician peers; the ability to work in multidisciplinary teams to achieve better health outcomes; using ever new information and technology to deliver and improve care; to be involved in physician and political organizations locally, nationally and internationally to make a difference in the world of medicine; and being a voice for your patients and fellow physicians.

To our students, interns and residents:
• Family medicine is important.
• Family medicine is unique.
• Family medicine is rewarding.
• Family medicine is in demand.
• Family medicine will provide you with infinite career opportunities.
• Family medicine has a bright future.

A.T. Still, MD, DO, the multifaceted philosopher-physician, lit the torch that provided a significant transformation, a revolution in every sense of the term, to the world of medicine, medical education, the health of a nation, and ultimately nations, and thus socially. He literally was the light that brought medicine out of the dark ages.

Imagine what it was like to be at the beginning of this revolution, when one man, one holistic, humanistic, philosopher physician—Dr. Still—would proclaim to the world that he had developed a new system of medicine based on natural principles, that the body, mind and soul of a person acted as a unity in health, that one’s structure and function were interrelated, and by palpatory diagnosis and treatment, one could affect both structure and function, either as cause or effect, of health and disease. Walk through the 100-plus years since his time looking through the eyes of osteopathic history. Now imagine the future, imagine the horizons of osteopathy! Riding on the force and truth of those osteopathic principles, building on the blood, sweat and tears of osteopathic physicians and leaders both great and small—where will we go? What are our horizons, what is our future? Where will our individual and collective passions and consciousness take us?

Our osteopathic evolution and revolution can reach for the stars if you so will it. Remember the words of Dr. Still when he said that DO stands for “dig on.” If you believe in osteopathy; if you value the struggles and work of our osteopathic predecessors, our physicians, leaders, educators, administrators and scientists; if you love osteopathy so much that you live it, then like our God-given gift of osteopathy itself, our osteopathic profession will enjoy its birthright of infinite horizons, a brilliant future and the blessings of all those who have been touched by its healing hands and benevolent wisdom as well as the blessings of the compassionate Creator who blesses all who do good to His creation.

As long as there is a history of medicine and a philosophy of medicine, the names of Dr. Still and osteopathy will always shine and inspire practitioners to reach for the stars and “dig on.”