events

Community Forum

Wednesday, April 27

Noon - 1 p.m.

Irvine 194 Athens

MEB2-153 Dublin

SPS-110 Cleveland

Faculty, staff and students are invited to join a discussion about Ohio University's long-term plans for the Dublin campus.

Heritage College 2016 Awards Ceremony

Friday May 6

12:30 p.m.

Baker Center Ballroom, Athens

Class of 2016 students need to RSVP here, and faculty and staff here.

Heritage College 37th annual Commencement
Saturday, May 7
10 a.m.
Templeton-Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium, Athens
Following commencement, a reception will be held in Baker Ballroom. For more information click here.

in the news

(Mentions
 OU+REACH program)
Dublin Villager
April 6
The Logan Daily News
March 31
Ebony
March 30
Columbus Dispatch; Canton Repository; Massillon Independent, New Philadelphia Times Reporter
March 26
Inside OME
March 2016
Philadelphia Sunday Sun
March 11
We don't need to assume diabetes is a relentless process
Medicalresearch.com
Feb. 3

alums in the news

John E. Adams, II, D.O. ('84)
Madison Press
April 7

resources

Heritage College news

ROUNDS archive   

 

contact us

Send your news, questions, suggestions or corrections for consideration in the next ROUNDS.  




And visit our blog:

State officials recognize college's 40 years of service
Executive Dean Kenneth Johnson, D.O., speaks at the Founders Day reception.
At a Founders Day celebration at the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus April 20, state legislators and the governor recognized the Heritage College for its 40 years of service to the state. (To see a blog post and photo gallery relating to the event, click here.)

Resolutions were presented in both the Ohio House and Senate. On hand to receive them were the deans of the Heritage College, as well as a former state legislator who in 1975 was instrumental in securing passage of the legislation that created the college.

Brian Clark, Ph.D., executive director of the Ohio Musculoskeletal and Neurological Institute, has been selected as the Osteopathic Heritage Foundation Harold E. Clybourne, D.O., Endowed
Brian Clark, Ph.D., accepts the Clybourne Chair at the Ohio Osteopathic Symposium.
Research Chair in the Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine. 

The creation of the endowed chair is part of a broader initiative to enhance the college's research platform and was made possible with support from the Osteopathic Heritage Foundations.

A purpose of the Clybourne Chair is to support scientists focused on translating discoveries from the bench to the bedside. Clark, professor of physiology at the Heritage College, is a prolific scientist, internationally known for his investigations related to the physiological mechanisms of muscle weakness and physical function impairments in the elderly (commonly referred to as "dynapenia," a term he and a colleague coined a decade ago). 

Two students from the Heritage College have been awarded
Elizabeth Jensen        Ashley Patton
highly competitive research fellowships, which are given to promising undergraduates, medical students and first-year
graduate students to pursue careers in endocrinology. Ashley Patton, a fourth-year D.O./Ph.D. student, and Elizabeth Jensen, a second-year D.O./Ph.D. student, are among 15 awardees chosen nationwide by the Endocrine Society to receive a stipend for research and an expense-paid trip to the society's annual meeting next year.

COMCorps seeking members for a healthier SE Ohio
The Heritage College Community Health Programs is now recruiting
COMCorps member Tiffany Downs plans to become a D.O.
new members for its AmeriCorps program, COMCorps. Positions are available for 24 full-time members who will partner with schools, government agencies and nonprofits to deliver health-related programs and services in Athens and Washington counties. 

Members serve 1,700 hours over 10.5- or 12-month service terms beginning Aug. 1.

Eligible applicants must be at least 17, have a high school diploma or GED, and have reliable transportation. They should enjoy working with people of all ages and socioeconomic backgrounds, and be interested in community health and education.

Student athletes often have access to specialized health care at universities, but performing arts students are less likely to receive the same kind of medical attention. At Ohio University, a collaboration between the Heritage College and the Clinic for Science and Health in Artistic Performance (SHAPe Clinic) is helping to meet the unique health care needs of dancers, musicians, actors and other performing arts students.

"By partnering with the Heritage College, we've taken our clinic to the next level in terms of the clinical care, research and education we provide to students," said Jeff Russell, Ph.D., founder and director of the SHAPe Clinic. "Having a clinic like ours is very rare among universities worldwide; it's even more unusual to work so closely with a medical school. The benefits are tremendous for the health and the blossoming careers of our performing arts students."
 
Nine multi-disciplinary teams have been awarded more than $4 million through Ohio University's Innovation Strategy program, including four teams involving faculty and staff from the Heritage College. The Innovation Strategy program provides major funding for new research and teaching initiatives, as well as smaller grants of up to $20,000 for pilot studies and activities.  

"We are very pleased to partner on so many innovative projects. Health care is moving toward a team-based approach that brings together professionals with diverse but complementary expertise to find ways to improve the care and safety of patients. It is exciting to see Ohio University support that kind of synergy and collaboration, knowing that the creative solutions developed here have the potential to change lives throughout Ohio and potentially the world," said Heritage College Executive Dean Kenneth Johnson, D.O.
 
Contributions to med ed honored at DOC Awards 
The 2016 installment of the Heritage College's Distinguished Osteopathic Commitment (DOC) Awards ceremony was the first to be held at all three campuses. Students, faculty and staff were honored March 14 for their contributions to osteopathic medical education, including the coveted award for Student Doctor of the Year, claimed this year by Evelyn A. Eakin, OMS IV and family medicine primary care associate.

In presenting the award, OMS II Taylor Edwards described Eakin as "outstandingly dedicated to the growth and development of the osteopathic profession. Faculty members have described her as earnest, hardworking, conscientious, humble, and eager to learn and improve. Students who have been mentored by her say that she is kind, caring, generous and a role model."

The Brose Award, founded in 2013 by Heritage College Student Government Association officers to recognize a faculty or staff member who has served as an outstanding student advocate, was given to Isaac J. Kirstein, D.O., dean of the Heritage College, Cleveland.

announcements
Family Navigator director named kids' champion
Sue Meeks, R.N.-B.C., manager of the Family Navigator Program for the Heritage College's Area Health Education
Sue Meeks, R.N.-B.C.
Center and Community Health
Programs, has been recognized as an Outstanding Champion for Children. 

She received the honor April 13 during the third annual Champions for Children Breakfast, sponsored jointly by Athens County Children Services; the Athens CASA/GAL (court-appointed special children's advocates) program; and the Athens County Child Advocacy Center. 

Meeks was one of three people to win this award for 2016. Her nomination cited her work in developing and managing the Heritage College's Family Navigator Program; her co-authoring of a grant for over $1 million to connect southern Ohio families with care providers; and her work on the Interdisciplinary Assessment Team of Integrating Professionals for Appalachian Children. 
ROUNDS newsletter to feature Brand Showcase
Many faculty and staff have said that they enjoy seeing communication projects from around the college, and it's great to see how our brand is reaching different audiences. "Brand Showcase" is a new regular feature in ROUNDS highlighting some of the great projects created in collaboration with many of you.

In ROUNDS you're seeing the stories we produce, you receive the college magazine, and many of you are connected to college social media including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and our college blog, Ohio University Medicine. "Brand Showcase" offers a look into another side of our efforts. You have online access via Box to PDFs of a regularly-refreshed collection of the brochures, displays, event publications and other promotional materials. We'll lift up a couple of the projects in ROUNDS every month.
  • Ohio Osteopathic Symposium 2016 event communications. Two brands working side-by-side: Heritage College and the Ohio Osteopathic Association. We developed pre-event promotion, invitations and on-site signage as part of a larger package.






  • "Against the Odds: Addressing Ohio's great health care challenges with a new osteopathic medical school took, vision, persistence and a healthy dose of courage", a special publication taken to AOA OMED 2015, which won First Place: Best Feature Article in AACOM's Excellence in Communication Awards 2016.
2016 grads, please complete hometown news survey
Attention members of the graduating class of 2016: With commencement fast approaching (May 7), it's time to start thinking about spreading the great news about your earning a D.O. degree, through your hometown news publications. Please help the Office of Communication do this by filling out our hometown newspaper survey located here. It takes only a couple of minutes, and it will simplify and speed up the process of sending a news release announcing your graduation to a paper or papers in your hometown. Even if you don't want a release sent, please tell us that through the survey.
human resources
New hires
 
Elizabeth McDonald, financial aid advisor, Athens campus, joined the Office of Student Affairs on March 14. She can be reached at Grosvenor Hall 008 at 740.593.2167, or by email at [email protected]. 
 
 

 
  
 
Debbie Essman, lab management associate (anatomical assistant), Athens campus, joined the Department of Biomedical Sciences on April 18. She can be reached at Grosvenor Hall 135 at 740.593.2171, or by email at [email protected].

 
In each issue of ROUNDS, look here
for information on transformative initiatives within Heritage College.

College updated on curriculum makeover efforts
While some questions still await answers, members of the Heritage College Curriculum Transformation Team (CTT) reported March 23 that they are making progress toward reshaping the college's primary care curriculum, to better meet the needs of the changing U.S. health care system.

At a community forum, CTT members updated faculty, staff and students on their progress so far, and what remains to be done. The team announced that the new curriculum will be launched in 2018, a year later than originally planned, to allow more time to address faculty concerns.

When the Osteopathic Heritage Foundation awarded the college an historic $105 million gift in 2011, one specified purpose for the money was the transformation of the college's primary care curricula. In pursuit of that goal, the Heritage College assembled the CTT, which has met regularly since August 2014.

At the March 23 forum Nicole Wadsworth, D.O. ('97), associate dean for academic affairs and CTT chair, noted that both the Association of American Medical Colleges and the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine have raised concerns that "some medical school graduates are not prepared for residency," and have called for establishing a "set of core behaviors that could or should be expected of all graduates." The challenge facing the Heritage College, Wadsworth suggested, is to achieve the needed changes while maintaining its distinctive osteopathic orientation.

Leah Sheridan, Ph.D., an integrative physiologist with the biomedical sciences department, reported on the work of the CTT's foundational committee, charged with developing broad guiding principles to govern the curriculum rewrite. These themes, she said, are wellness; generalism; reflective practice; and the osteopathic approach. 

Jody Gerome Zuchowski, D.O. ('05), assistant dean of the Southeast Ohio Clinical Campus and assistant professor of OB/GYN, reported on the work of the CTT's electives committee, which is developing elective courses. Possible areas for such electives, she said, include rural and urban medicine; lifestyle medicine; OMM honors; public health; and academic medicine.

Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine | Office of Communication | 334 Irvine Hall | Athens | OH | 45701