MESA, Ariz. – At a time when healthcare reform will most likely propose wellness incentives and taking personal responsibility for health, A.T. Still University (ATSU) has already been leading the way in both its curriculum for medical school students and its employee health program.

ATSU’s School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona (ATSU-SOMA) is grounded in osteopathic medicine, which focuses on wellness, prevention, and the integration of mind, body, and spirit. Andrew Taylor Still, M.D., D.O., is the father of osteopathic medicine and founder of the first college of osteopathic medicine, now A.T. Still University-Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine (ATSU-KCOM).

SOMA’s four-year curriculum includes clinical experience in patient settings beginning in the first year. As a reflection of osteopathic philosophy, the curriculum emphasizes preventive medicine and comprehensive patient care. Most medical schools do not enter clinical training until their third year, following two years of basic sciences and clinical text studies. SOMA students are unique in that they continue basic science and clinical curriculum studies while interacting with patients in community health centers (CHCs) throughout the United States.

“Our students work alongside CHC faculty and are able to diagnose, treat, and educate patients on disease and disease prevention,” said Douglas Wood, D.O., Ph.D., dean of SOMA. “We believe that we are the right medical school at the right time. Healthcare reform is now focusing on prevention and individuals at risk for chronic diseases, but prevention and wellness always have been our focus, and we are preparing tomorrow’s healthcare providers to advocate personal health responsibility and prevention. We are also serving a population of individuals who may be medically uninsured or underinsured.”

In addition, CHCs offer students the opportunity to learn about and participate in disease collaboratives. The National Center for Disease Bureau of Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion put together collaboratives for treating chronic diseases such as diabetes and asthma. The collaboratives—so named because CHCs nationwide participate in the protocols—are proving to be cost-effective and show a reduction in the frequency of hospital visits for patients with these chronic diseases. The collaboratives also allow outreach to populations who may be disproportionately affected by these diseases.

ATSU focuses on wellness and prevention among their employees as well. ATSU offers employees a chance to take personal responsibility for their health while also receiving a discount on their health insurance premium through the Still Healthy program. Still Healthy not only comprises a reduction in monthly premiums, but employees are also eligible for an annual reimbursement for participating in the program. All employees agree to attend four educational health programs per year, complete an online health assessment, and be a non-smoker or participate in a smoking cessation program. Additionally, all participants agree to a wellness exam paid 100 percent by ATSU.

“We understand that healthcare reform will probably advocate personal responsibility for being healthy, and we are already implementing wellness incentives for our employees to adopt healthy lifestyle behaviors,” said Tonya Watson, assistant director, human resources at ATSU in Arizona.

The recent addition of the East Valley Family YMCA on ATSU’s Arizona campus provides students, staff, and faculty with an added opportunity to focus on disease prevention and wellness. The YMCA opened October 24 and will partner with ATSU on programs that improve the health of ATSU employees and YMCA members.

SOMA students at the HealthSource of Ohio campus in Milford, Ohio.

KIRKSVILLE, Mo. – The inaugural class at A.T. Still University’s School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona (SOMA), who are scheduled to graduate in 2011, set out in September to community health center campuses (CHCs) across the country that will become their homes for the next three years of their medical education. The School’s ground-breaking contextual learning model places medical students in clinical settings in their second year and, by all accounts, the new model is showing strong signs of success.

“Overall, everything is going quite satisfactorily,” said SOMA Dean Douglas Wood, D.O., Ph.D., regarding the students’ first few months off-campus. He further indicated that feedback from the CHCs, learning facilitators, and students is very positive. Initial feedback also indicates that SOMA students have arrived at the clinics well-prepared for the new clinical setting. “Physicians at the clinical sites are consistently amazed at the amount of knowledge that our students have,” said Dr. Wood. “Because of how our curriculum is set up, we expect nothing less.”

Provost Craig M. Phelps, D.O., FAOASM, ’84, visited sites in Brooklyn, New York, and Beaufort, S.C., to see firsthand how students are progressing. “It is humbling to see how well our students are embraced by the faculty, staff, administration, and most importantly, patients, at their community health center campuses,” said Dr. Phelps. “It is a testament to how well the educational model is working.”

SOMA leadership is not taking their initial success lightly, or for granted. Dr. Wood was quick to point out that SOMA has a strong system in place to monitor progress. Along with phones, email, podcasts, video, and other electronic communication, it is SOMA’s priority to send one of the School’s five deans to each clinical site twice a year to monitor and report progress. Between September and January, eight formal site visits had been completed. The other three sites have received informal visits and are slated for a formal evaluation in the near future. “It is important to have a new set of eyes at each location on a regular basis,” said Dr. Wood.

SOMA student Vanessa DeSousa, OMS II, confirmed that she felt well-prepared when she first started in her clinic in Porterville, Calif. “All of the [first year] OSCEs and medical skills practice, as well as OPP lab, have really helped me to interact with patients appropriately,” she said.

For students at the CHCs, roughly 60 to 70 percent of their time is still spent in didactic education. Each of the 11 campuses has a learning facilitator and a classroom for ongoing instruction. The remaining 30 to 40 percent of their time is spent in the clinic setting, seeing patients who often present the very health issues and illnesses that they are learning about in class.

“When I can put a patient face to the name of a disorder, disease, syndrome, etc…, it stays with me,” said DeSousa. “In addition, having a seasoned physician to talk to about each patient really helps me learn the important clinical and basic science concepts.

“I have had several experiences already where a patient presents with exactly what we are talking about in our basic sciences,” she continued. “It makes sense to learn in the context in which we will be practicing. Physicians have commented that we know a lot already, and that we are very lucky to have early clinical exposure.”

MESA, ARIZ. (Sept. 12, 2008 ) – A.T. Still University’s School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona (ATSU-SOMA) has been awarded funding for two projects that will further enhance efforts to train students in rural and underserved areas in Arizona.

SOMA students spend their second through fourth years learning at community health center campuses throughout the nation, giving them an opportunity for hands-on learning in a small group setting while at the same time helping to provide healthcare services to many underserved populations. Three of those community health center campus locations are in Arizona.

The Arizona Area Health Education Centers (AHEC) awarded SOMA $75,000 to fund the Arizona Rural and Underserved Health Workforce Training Project, and another $25,000 to fund the American Indian Rural Service (AIRS) Training and Northern Arizona Rural Service (NARS) Training Projects.The Arizona AHEC Program is administered through the University of Arizona Health Sciences Center.

“We are honored to work in partnership with the AHEC central office and the three regional AHECs to train medical students in local community environments that provide exceptional care to underserved populations,” said Thomas E. McWilliams, D.O., FACOFP, associate dean of bio-clinical sciences at SOMA. “These grants allow students to be exposed to didactic and clinical materials in context; that is, in an environment where the knowledge can be applied and services rendered.

“We believe that this type of learning is more effectively recalled and that such experiences will promote the selection of specialty careers that are needed by underserved communities and populations,” he continued. “The grants also allow us to better prepare the next generation of healthcare professionals to provide culturally appropriate care and to work effectively as part of a healthcare team.”

The Arizona Rural and Underserved Health Workforce Training Project gives students an opportunity to assist in the delivery of medical services to underserved populations served by AHEC centers. As part of this project, ATSU will establish “classrooms in a box” at SOMA’s three Arizona community health center campuses: Phoenix Indian Medical Center in Phoenix, North Country Community Health Center in Flagstaff, and El Rio Community Health Center in Tucson. The classroom in a box includes a computer, network connection equipment, and audio, video, and graphics components that together form a system that will enable remote lecture presentations, conferences, and workshops at the community campus sites. Funds will also help facilitate inter-professional experiences with ATSU peers from the Arizona School of Dentistry & Oral Health, and fund a consultant who will present a workshop on cultural competency and cross-cultural communication.

The AIRS Training Project partners SOMA students with the Greater Valley Area Health Education Center and allows them to become an integral part of the Phoenix Indian Medical Center healthcare team that provides quality primary care to approximately 153,500 American Indian patients. Similarly, the NARS project partners students with the Northern Area Health Education Center to observe patient care and gain an understanding of the local healthcare system. Funds from AIRS and NARS projects pay for students’ travel expenses to remote training sites as well as provide portable equipment for effective training at those sites.

KIRKSVILLE, Mo. (July 24, 2008 ) – The School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona (SOMA) is a recipient of the Health Resources and Services Administration’s Pre-Doctoral Training in Primary Care grant funded at a rate of $723,210 through June 30, 2011. The grant will further SOMA and the National Association of Community Health Centers’ (NACHC) partnership to train a new cadre of family medicine and primary care physicians for underserved populations.

Under the guidance of project director Thomas E. McWilliams, D.O., FACOFP, the grant will focus on activities including developing, implementing, and assessing a didactic patient-centered family medicine curriculum; an innovative, longitudinal, integrated family medicine clinical training program modeled after the Harvard Medical School-Cambridge Integrated Clerkship; and cultural competence training.

“It is our goal” said Dr. McWilliams, SOMA associate dean, “to train compassionate family medicine and primary care physicians who are technologically adept, prevention oriented, and who are lifelong learners and teachers.”

A.T. Still University’s School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona was established in 2007. Since its inception, SOMA has been creating a new paradigm of medical education meshing community/safety-net healthcare needs with the medical education process. SOMA’s purpose is to educate and graduate osteopathic medical students who are broadly skilled in the core competencies that transcend medical disciplines and are thus capable of reducing current barriers to care, as well as eliminating health disparities. SOMA’s commitment to community mirrors NACHC goals to expand healthcare access for America’s medically underserved through the community-based health center model. For more information about SOMA or the NACHC, visit www.atsu.edu or www.nachc.com.

This program is funded by the Pre-Doctoral Training in Primary Care Grant D56HP10312-01-00 between ATSU-SOMA and the Health Resources and Services Administration.

School educating doctors to serve Arizona’s neediest populations

MESA, Ariz. (June 22, 2007) – On July 31, A.T. Still University will open the doors to its inaugural class of 106 students at the most innovative medical school in America. The opening will take place at 10 a.m. at A.T. Still University’s campus located at E. Still Circle and Sunview Drive (off Baseline Road) in Mesa.

“The establishment of this new medical school is good news for the state of Arizona and our nation, which are both experiencing critical shortages of physicians,” said James J. McGovern, Ph.D., president of A.T. Still University.  “We are committed to educating physicians who will not only address this shortage, but who will be providing their services, personally and compassionately, where they’re needed most – in medically underserved communities.”

Through its partnership with the National Association of Community Health Centers, A.T. Still University’s new medical school will afford students the opportunity to begin clinical rotations in one of 11 Community Health Centers during their second year of medical school. At that time, the students will spend approximately half their time in the classroom and the other half observing doctors and applying their learning to direct patient care.

“With the opening of this new medical school, we are redefining medical education in America,” said Craig M. Phelps, D.O., the school’s provost.  “Ultimately, our goal is to graduate community-minded doctors who will return to serve the medically underserved populations.”

In addition to providing hands-on education in community health centers, A.T. Still University’s School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona is the first medical school to base its curriculum – from inception – on the Clinical Presentation Model. This model concentrates on how patients present symptoms to physicians. Extensive research has found that patients present to physicians approximately 120 ways. Students will be taught how to address symptoms and terms of the mind, body, and spirit. Above all, the student doctors will be given exercises to improve their compassion and integrity.

Kevin Moley, Ambassador, U.S. Department of State, will present the keynote address at the opening. Moley served as deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 1992, after which he held key executive leadership roles at PCS Health Systems and  Integrated Medical Systems. He returned to public service as ambassador and U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations, and was involved in a variety of humanitarian and human rights efforts. Currently he serves on the Board of Directors of Merge Technologies.

Other featured speakers are:

Tom Curtin, M.D., medical director of the National Association of Community Health Centers. NACHC’s partnership with ATSU is an essential component of new medical school and the new curriculum.

Peter Ajluni, D.O., president of the American Osteopathic Association, and senior orthopedic surgeon at Mount Clemens Regional Medical Center in Michigan. Ajluni and the AOA were important partners in building a new medical school.

Claudia Walters, vice mayor, City of Mesa, Ariz. The University and the City of Mesa have worked together for much of the past decade in building A.T. Still University’s campus in Mesa.

A.T. Still University first established a presence in Arizona more than 60 years ago, when the University began Arizona-based clinical rotations for its medical students from the Kirksville College of Osteopathic Medicine, located in Kirksville, Mo. Since that time, A.T. Still University has become a significant institution in the state. The School of Osteopathic Medicine in Arizona will join A.T. Still University’s other two graduate schools on its Mesa campus; its Arizona School of Health Sciences has graduated nearly 2,000 students since 1995 and its Arizona School of Dentistry & Oral Health graduated its first class in May 2007.