In my August 2017 editorial
1 in
The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association (
JAOA), I discussed the scarcity of prospective studies demonstrating the distinguishing characteristics of the osteopathic medical profession. The editorial
1 briefly reviewed the past 125 years of osteopathic medicine and outlined an abridged path leading to the current status of the profession. In that editorial, 7 measureable outcomes used at the Touro University College of Osteopathic Medicine-CA (TUCOM) were proposed under the
GROUPIE acronym:
O = Osteopathic manipulative medicine and Obesity
U = hand-held Ultrasonography
These outcomes attempt to demonstrate a unique osteopathic approach to health care to enhance patient-physician communication and, ultimately, improve patient adherence and compliance in a high-quality, cost-effective manner.
The 3 articles that accompanied my editorial in the August 2017 issue of the
JAOA focused on research, obesity, and empathy.
2-4 These 3 articles were intended to provide a foundation to better define a framework for the unique and distinguishing characteristics of osteopathic medical students and graduates as health care professionals.
In the current issue of the
JAOA, through this editorial and 4 other articles, 3 additional components of GROUPIE (ultrasonography, public health, and interprofessionalism) are highlighted and 1 (obesity) is revisited.
5-8 When added to the 3 previously published articles, the content collectively further sets the foundation elucidating a possible direction to consider as the osteopathic medical profession moves into the next 125 years.
Ultrasonography has been a diagnostic tool for decades, but not until the past decade has it transformed into a portable handheld device for the clinician to use at the point of care. Our college has joined a consortium of medical schools in California (referred to as
UMeCali) to introduce ultrasonography longitudinally throughout the medical school curriculum.
9 The article by Hendriksz et al
5 explores how a staged approach focusing on point-of-care ultrasonography enhances anatomical knowledge and diagnostic skill as an integrative educational unit. The article also details the rationale for the TOUCH program (Targeting OMT [osteopathic manipulative treatment] and Ultrasound Combination in Health), which will help determine whether patient-physician communication is improved with OMT or ultrasonography and whether the combination of these 2 modalities will enhance communication and patient adherence to an even greater extent.
The Institute of Medicine recommends that public health education be incorporated into the medical school curriculum.
10 In this issue of the
JAOA, Velasco-Mondragon et al
6 review the development and success of the dual DO/MPH program, which has grown to be the largest DO/MPH program in the osteopathic medical profession.
6 In 2012, TUCOM's affiliation with the 3 local Federally Qualified Healthcare Centers opened the full array of county public health services, which contributed significantly to the public health component of GROUPIE. The strong public health culture further derives much of its strength from its ability to overlap with various other components of GROUPIE, such as the global health program, where 43% of the dual degree DO/MPH students receive their MPH in global public health.
As part of our public health focus, we are also addressing type 2 diabetes mellitus, which has become a public health pandemic. In their review, Shubrook et al
8 show the substantial evidence for prevention and delay of new-onset type 2 diabetes as demonstrated in the National Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP). The evidence has been so strong that Medicare now provides full coverage for the DPP as a benefit for all Medicare beneficiaries who have prediabetes. Further, California Medicaid and private insurers are also covering this program.
The Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation requires interprofessional education in its standards for all colleges of osteopathic medicine (COMs).
11 An example of the interprofessional focus of the GROUPIE program is the DPP, which includes a full spectrum of health care professionals functioning as a collaborative team.
12 To date, the DPP has trained more than 350 certified lifestyle coaches across all disciplines (DO, PA, PharmD, and MPH students and faculty from each college). The coaches then work in interprofessional teams to offer this program to the community as part of service learning. The success of the DPP has allowed TUCOM to become the first medical school in the nation to formally train its student body and register with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to become an accredited program.
As an outgrowth of the success of the DPP, a new interprofessional outreach program called MOBEC (Mobile Diabetes Education Center) extends the DPP and other diabetes-related programs to the far-reaches of Solano County to address risk and lifestyle choices to a largely disenfranchised community.
6 Since its launch in April 2017, MOBEC served more than 3000 people in Solano County. The goals of MOBEC are to raise awareness of people's diabetes status and to offer education and access to programming in the community. In the article by Velasco-Mondragon et al,
6 the inclusion of interprofessional education into the GROUPIE program is demonstrated to be part of a more comprehensive approach to focus on the quadruple aim of population health, patient experience, per capita cost, and provider work-life balance as espoused by the National Center for Interprofessional Practice and Education.
13
One new article
7 included in this issue of the
JAOA extends and enhances previously published GROUPIE-focused articles on obesity, specifically FOODS (Fundamentals for an Osteopathic Obesity Designed Study).
2 The FOODS article
2 demonstrated that a comprehensive obesity curriculum improved knowledge related to obesity while concomitantly improving inherent bias against obesity.
2 In the article “Cardiovascular Disease as a Result of the Interactions Between Obesity, Climate Change, and Inflammation: The COCCI Syndemic,”
7 my colleagues and I focus on a specific component of the FOODS curriculum detailing the environmental implications of the obesity epidemic. The syndemic model implicates 2 or more diseases or contributors to disease, in this case, obesity and climate change, clustering within a myriad of societal factors and creating greater adverse interactions than typically expected.
14 The next phase of FOODS will explore the effectiveness of transporting this comprehensive curriculum to other institutions and residency programs to determine whether changes in knowledge and attitude will ultimately result in better patient outcomes.
In my previous editorial,
1 I noted that from 1978 to 2016, fewer than 15 original articles presenting evidence-based outcomes demonstrating distinguishing characteristics, uniqueness, and/or distinctiveness of the osteopathic medical profession were published in the
JAOA. In reviewing similar original research articles published in 2017, there were 6 that met these criteria.
2,3,15-18 Of these 6 articles, 2 were brief communications from Italian researchers,
15,17 1 focused on the Comprehensive Osteopathic Medical Licensing Examination-USA,
16 and 2 were part of the original GROUPIE articles.
2,3 I had posited that if each COM proposed even 1 unique measureable prospective outcome representing an overall public good, the number of distinctive osteopathic articles would grow substantially. As a result, the cumulative influx of manuscripts detailing the overall public good from the osteopathic medical profession could then collectively further refine and delineate an evidence base to help direct a strategic path to start the next 125 years of osteopathic medicine. To requote a 2009 statement from Chen and Mullan:
19 The structure of today's osteopathic medical schools may be hard to distinguish from that of their allopathic counterparts, but the output of osteopathic medical schools remains clearly distinctive, and the nation's healthcare system benefits as a result.
Although 9 years have passed since that statement was published, the need for our COMs and the osteopathic medical profession to remain clearly distinctive still resonates and may be more relevant than ever.
As I mentioned in my previous
JAOA editorial,
1 TUCOM appreciates
The Journal's Engage Initiative, which allows COMs to showcase their scholarly activity.
20 In this issue of the
JAOA, TUCOM shares additional articles related to the GROUPIE program, which is but one example of the ways in which the osteopathic medical profession, along with osteopathic medical students, our graduates, and COMs, can distinguish itself. As we move forward from the osteopathic medical profession's 125th anniversary, our profession may be buoyed by an excerpt from Robert Frost's poem “The Road Not Taken”
21:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.