Faisal Mohamed, a student in the master of public health degree program, was accepted this summer in the Minority Training Program in Cancer Control Research (MTPCCR), a joint program of the University of California- San Francisco and University of California-Los Angeles with support of the National Cancer Institute. Its purpose is to increase ethnic diversity in the field of cancer control research by encouraging minority students and master’s-trained health professionals to pursue doctoral degrees and careers in research.

Mohamed, who is from Ethiopia, participated in a five-day program designed to showcase the opportunities and need for minority researchers in cancer control. He then began a three-month internship that’s part of a five-year obesity control trial, in which he is collecting data about participating subjects’ height, weight, blood pressure and cardiac fitness. He says the internship, his DMU education and the people he met through the University “will guide me to be a better person and help me make a difference in the public health arena worldwide.”

“My long-term goal is working with the World Health Organization or Centers for Disease Control, especially with minority groups or undeveloped countries to address their health problems,” he notes.

Meanwhile, Rebecca Williams, who completed her master’s degree in public health this spring, is in Bronx, NY, in a 12-month Graduate Healthcare Administration Training Program (GHATP) at the James J. Peters Veterans Administration Medical Center. She has rotations in different areas of the hospital. One of her projects was to analyze its compensation and pension program; in another, she helped patients enroll in the center’s home telehealth program.

“My plan is to be a leader in both public health and health care administration,” she says. “The program was the perfect opportunity to get hands-on work experience where I would also be taught firsthand by hospital administrators and leaders in government health care. “The faculty, my advisers and DMU program directors have all taught me to be passionate about the work we are doing, dedicated to the movement we are experiencing in health care and the flexibility and professionalism I need to enhance my career,” she adds.

Members of the DMU Choir and String Quartet juggle classes and tests. They excel on board exams and clinical rotations. And somehow they’re able to meld medicine and music, masterfully. Can these people fly?

By the time they arrived at the venue, members of the DMU Choir were already a bit nervous about their performance at the University’s 2009 Glanton Scholarship dinner. Not only were they going to sing with world-renowned operatic bass-baritone Simon Estes in front of more than 500 guests, but they also had had just a week to practice “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

Then an unfortunate bit of miscommunication boosted their collective blood pressure: Just hours before they took the stage, Estes told the choir members he expected their pianist, osteopathic medicine student Jenna Tate, to tickle the ivories along with the pianist he’d brought along for his solo numbers. The piano score was an orchestral transcription of the song, which made it even more difficult and daunting.

“It definitely added a bit of stress to the evening,” understates Tate. “I knew we were going to have to improvise somehow if we were going to have something playable within a couple of hours.”

Nonetheless, she and her choir mates kept as cool as steely emergency room doctors. They performed to enthusiastic applause and rave reviews. “You don’t get the opportunity to sing everyday with a world-class opera singer, especially as a non-professional,” says choir member Katie Schell, D.O.’12.

Most DMU Choir members were hard-wired for song at an early age. Choir member Ashley Holland, D.O.’13, credits the colic she had as a baby for her musical acumen.

“For the first three years of my life, I cried all the time,” she says. “My mom says all that crying I did stretched and prepared my vocal chords.”

Two years ago, Kendall Reed, D.O., FACOS, FACS, dean of the College of Osteopathic Medicine, sparked the idea for a university choir by e-mailing the idea to COM students. “I got more than 100 responses within an hour,” he recalls. The group now has about 25 active members and several more on its e-mail list.

Why a choir at a medical school? “I think music is part of the culture of a university,” Reed notes. “And it gives students balance in their lives.”

Resonating idea

Growing up, Nicole Nelson, D.O.’13, came to love the violin because her lessons let her miss the weekly meetings with the guidance counselor that her school required. Early in her DMU career, she and osteopathic classmate Yoshihiro Ozaki, a cellist, discovered their mutual stringed strengths.

“We thought, ‘Hey, we’re half a quartet,” Nelson adds. She and Ozaki spread the word and were soon joined by others, including Eric Lew, now a fourth-year podiatric medicine student.

“I was really excited to catch word that there were other string instrumentalists on campus,” Lew says. “We realized the chance we had for providing a unique musical service to the DMU community.”

The DMU Choir and String Quartet have become regular, albeit unpaid, stars at University events. Ozaki sees an analogy between music and medicine.

“When you see patients, they don’t really care how much time you’ve spent in class or in board exams,” he says. “That’s like performance – the audience doesn’t care how much you’ve practiced so long as you’re giving them the gift of music.”

Giving the gift of music: Several members of the DMU community are also members of the Des Moines Community Orchestra, including students Nicole Nelson and Yoshihiro Ozaki, who is principal cellist; Deb Gordley, a DMU administrative secretary and the orchestra’s principal oboist; and gastroenterologist Bernard Feldman, D.O.’80, a cellist and member of the DMU Board of Trustees.

Health PASS students in the Sim Lab

Naomi Hasselblad is a wife, the mother of two preschool children and a biology major at the University of Dubuque, but in July she took a break from that life to experience medical school. She was one of 10 students selected for DMU’s inaugural “Health Professions Advanced Summer Scholars” program, or Health P.A.S.S., a three-week immersion in medical school for high-achieving undergraduates who are minorities under-represented in health care, socio-economically disadvantaged or first-generation college students.

Health PASS students suturing

“My husband has always heard me tell him I wanted to go back to school and become a doctor. He told me that I just need to do it,” Hasselblad says. “I’ve enjoyed absolutely everything about the [Health P.A.S.S.] program and learning how each profession works. DMU is unbelievable in how they treat students. Once you’re in, you’re part of the family.”

While the Health P.A.S.S. students – chosen from more than 100 applicants – brought diverse backgrounds from the East Coast and the Midwest, they quickly became a family. They lived in an apartment building near campus, cooked together, worked out in DMU’s wellness center and enjoyed planned after-hours activities including an Iowa Cubs baseball game, the downtown farmers’ market and the Science Center of Greater Iowa. They also enjoyed simply hanging out together.

“It was instant bonding, from day one,” says Megan Whitehead, a Clemson University student from Versailles, GA. “We all have enough in common and the same motivation.”

“It was so refreshing to hang out at night and have conversations about diabetes and hemoglobin,” adds Nicki Landt, a Central College senior from Garwin, IA. “Plus we share an excitement for health care. We’ve been an interdisciplinary team.”

The program featured lectures by DMU pre-clinical and clinical faculty focused on diabetes, hands-on activities in the simulation center and anatomy laboratory, and shadowing experiences in the DMU Clinic. Students also learned about various health care professions, gained tips on how to prepare and interview for medical school and had mock interviews with DMU’s enrollment staff. One goal of the program is to increase diversity among DMU students by attracting participants to apply.

“This was an opportunity to experience DMU from a student viewpoint,” says Landt, who’s applied for the University’s physician assistant program. “It’s struck a passion in me for learning and practice.”

“I’ve visited medical schools before, but it’s a different thing being there for three weeks,” says Danny Harrington, a senior at Central Connecticut State University. “The program is constructed to make you think about what you want to do, and we’ve been able to meet DMU students on a personal and professional level.”

In her Peace Corps work, education,
research and practice, Jenell Stewart
has strived to follow an uncle’s advice
to “put a heartfelt effort into this life.”

Three years ago, Jenell Stewart,
D.O.’12, M.P.H.’12, was working
with a group of women in Jirapa,
Ghana, to build a bakery that
would create employment
opportunities and, as a result,
help reduce poverty in the area.
In her 27 months as a Peace Corps
volunteer in the West African country,
she also educated people about Guinea
worm disease, encouraged behaviors
that help prevent HIV/AIDS, taught
people living with HIV/AIDS how to
make soap to earn money, and
organized volleyball teams among
local men as a way to make them
aware of their often-sexist remarks.

This summer, Stewart took her good
works for women to a global level:
During a nine-week internship at the
World Health Organization in Geneva,
Switzerland, she developed a training
course designed to educate front-line
health care providers on gender-
responsive health care. She notes that
gender-related health care disparities
are made worse for women in poor
countries where they face discrimination.

“Countries and communities where women have lesser rights, independence or economic standing than men often see notable differences in the health of men and women,” she says.

The WHO’s 2009 “Women and Health Report,” Stewart adds, highlighted the need to strengthen health systems to better meet women’s needs in terms of access, comprehensiveness and responsiveness. She hopes her training course will help achieve that, including in Ghana.

“We hope to do a field test in Ghana soon,” she says. “Between my supervisors’ professional contacts in Ghana’s Ministry of Health Department and mine in Peace Corps Ghana, we should be able to locate some communities that would benefit and be receptive to testing it.”

Meanwhile, Stewart is in a year-long rotation at St. John Macomb Oakland Hospital in Warren, MI, Detroit’s largest suburb. She expected to observe other kinds of disparities there.

“There is so much diversity there not just in race and ethnicity, but also religion, economic, etc. Also, it is such a tumultuous time for so many in the current economic environment [in Detroit],” she says. “I expect that I will learn about medicine in a broader context as I observe and work with patients to find practical solutions to their health issues among complex barriers.”

Stewart plans to continue bringing dual perspectives from osteopathic medicine and public health to her work. “I have become even more inspired and focused on finding my niche in the big picture of public health as a clinician working one on one with patients,” she says.

Dante Samuel, D.O.’13, began tutoring two PA students who then invited others to join the group, which grew to 10. Because PA students attend classes during the day, Samuel met with his students on weekends and in the evenings, with sessions going sometimes as late as midnight.

“He helped a tremendous amount. He explained things in very simple terms so they were easy to understand,” says Ashley Jones, PA’12, one of the students originally matched with Samuel. “He was truly a lifesaver in physiology.”

Her roommate and fellow member of the group, Brooke Schweitzer, PA’12, agrees. “He would explain information that we didn’t understand, he was prepared for our sessions and he understood that we are given so much information that it is hard to soak it all in at once,” she says. “It made me more confident about the way I studied, more confident about taking the exams, and it helped me score better on the exams themselves.”

Peer tutors benefit, too, because the activity gives them reason to review materials they covered in their first academic year. “I found myself studying even more, because they wouldn’t have just one question, but lots of questions,” says Samuel, now a surgery teaching assistant and president of the College of Osteopathic Medicine student government. “And it gave me a new respect for PAs. They have to know as much as I do.”

Scott Lundgren, D.O.’13, became a peer tutor because of his goal to work at an academic medical institution some day. “I felt the experience helped me work on my ability to explain and discuss information with the students in a concise yet understandable way,” he says. “[Tutoring] also allows you to help out future health care professionals like yourself so that they are as successful and learn as much as they possibly can.”

Peer tutor Christina Jamros, D.O.’13, says the activity allows tutors to evaluate their own understanding in a collaborative way. She adds: “I would recommend it as a great opportunity to practice ‘see one, do one, teach one.’”

An OPTI is a consortium consisting of a college of osteopathic medicine and graduate teaching hospitals and programs. Since 1999, all osteopathic medical training programs are required by the American Osteopathic Association to be OPTI members. DMU had been a member of the Osteopathic Postdoctoral Training Institute of Kirksville (OPTIK), but the new network will enhance residency training in Iowa and contiguous states, says David Plundo, D.O.’85, FACOFP, FAODME, chief academic officer of the HEARTland Network.

“The HEARTland OPTI provides a comprehensive, seamless model of education for physician training, from colleges of osteopathic medicine through graduate medical education programs and beyond,” adds Plundo, who is also associate dean of medical education and external affairs, College of Osteopathic Medicine.

The HEARTland Network, one of 19 OPTIs in the country, to date has nine members in addition to DMU, including hospitals and family medicine programs at the University of Minnesota and University of Wisconsin.

In addition to promoting excellence in education and training for osteopathic medicine students, interns and residents, the network will foster faculty development and collaborative research among member organizations. The HEARTland Network also has a connection through DMU to Iowa’s Area Health Education Centers, or AHECs, which work to recruit, train and retain a health professions workforce committed to the underserved – starting with students in grade school.

“The network is the continuation of the pipeline, starting with kindergarten through 12th-grade students with AHECs and following through residency and, we hope, employment in Iowa and its rural areas,” Plundo says. “It’s what’s best for the state and the University.”

The DMU scientists involved in this research are Justin Costello, D.O.’11; Edward Finnerty, Ph.D., professor of physiology and pharmacology; and David Strom, Ph.D., associate professor, who worked with members of Mercy Medical Center’s radiation oncology department, Des Moines. Their abstract about preliminary treatment results among 28 patients with recurrent NSCLC was selected for a poster presentation at the annual meeting of the American Society for Radiation Oncology (ASTRO), Oct. 31-Nov. 4 in San Diego.

“This approach has been well-tolerated even among patients who have had chemotherapy in the past,” says Dev Puri, M.D., a radiation oncologist at Mercy who invited the DMU faculty to join the research. He praised Costello for his work on the abstract.

“Justin showed a tremendous amount of initiative and independence in terms of gathering the data, doing the statistical analysis and constructing a very well-written and timely abstract,” Puri says. “For a third-year medical student, this is an outstanding accomplishment, especially given the fact that a clear majority of accepted abstracts at ASTRO come from much larger academic institutions with very well-established clinical and basic research programs.”

Long-time Iowa civil rights leader and DMU Trustee Willie Stevenson Glanton greets Glanton Scholarship recipient Elizabeth Ceballos, D.O.’12.

Elizabeth Ceballos grew up being told she would eventually work at a canning factory in her Idaho hometown. The oldest of six children, she was often charged with taking care of her siblings.

These days, however, Ceballos is a third-year College of Osteopathic Medicine student, thanks to her rock-solid work ethic, sheer determination and some financial help from the University’s Glanton Scholarship Fund.

“Being in medical school has been a surreal experience for me,” she told the nearly 500 guests at the University’s annual Glanton Scholarship Fund Dinner on Oct. 14. “I still have a hard time believing that I’m living my dream.”

Her dream and those of other Glanton Scholarship recipients are supported by donors to the fund, which DMU created to help make medical and health sciences education more accessible for students under-represented in the professions.

“Thanks to your generosity, I am able to borrow less in loans,” Ceballos said at the scholarship dinner. “But more important, I won’t ever have to work at that canning factory – I will be a well-prepared physician who is passionate about improving the quality of life for others.”

The scholarship honors Willie Stevenson Glanton and the late Judge Luther T. Glanton Jr. Both lawyers, they dedicated their lives to professional leadership and community service. That included service to DMU: Judge Glanton joined the DMU Board of Trustees in 1979; when he died in 1991, Mrs. Glanton took his place on the board, became its chair in 1999 and continues to serve today.

Since DMU created the scholarship fund in 2004, it has grown to more than $1.5 million, including more than $230,000 given by donors during the past year. “The individuals and organizations that support the Glanton Scholarship Fund foster both opportunities for deserving students and diversity in health care,” says Sue Huppert, vice president for alumni and development.

This year’s Glanton Scholarship Dinner honoree was Robert Ray, J.D., who served as Iowa’s 38th governor from 1969 to 1983. In addition to appointing Luther Glanton to the district court bench in the mid-1970s, making him the first black judge in Iowa, Ray championed civil rights for all. Since leaving office, he has continued to serve the community, including as interim mayor of Des Moines, co-founder of the Institute for Character Development and co-chair of the National Coalition on Health Care.

DMU osteopathic medicine students Mitchell Gesell, above, Sarah Yeager, below right, and Anders Osthus, bottom left, work with Drake student athletes to help them improve their performance.

By easing pain, improving function and increasing mobility, osteopathic manual medicine offers clear benefits to athletes.

As a first-year D.O. student, Kurt Holt once saw a Drake University track student he’d met who was out for a run. He observed she wasn’t extending her leg backward due to her running style. The next time he saw her, “I told her, ‘I bet you have trouble sprinting,’” Holt recalls. “She was running 5,000- and 10,000-meter races but wasn’t finishing them.”

Holt eventually gave the Drake student two osteopathic manual medical treatments; after that, she placed in both of her track events. That sparked an idea: Holt, a former competitive bicyclist, worked with DMU’s OMM department and Drake athletic staff to offer faculty-supervised treatments twice monthly to Drake students competing in soccer, cross country, track and field.

“We’re mostly evaluating, treating and resolving biomechanical issues,” says Holt, who holds an OMM fellowship at DMU. “For our students, it’s an opportunity to see if OMM is something they’re drawn to.”

Approximately 40 DMU students and 40 Drake students participate in the program, now in its fourth year. To participate, DMU students first must provide an OMM treatment to Holt and commit at least a year to the program. That’s an advantage. “It allows us to see a patient consecutively over a year, as in the real world,” says OMM fellow Joanne Genewick, D.O.’11. “It brings together all we’re learning in class and gave me the ability to work on my approach with patients.”

Another OMM fellow, Anne Marie Darby, D.O.’11, got involved in the program to improve her OMM skills by working with patients with “real problems,” including back pain, muscle sprains and strains, tendinitis and possible stress fractures.

“Some of the comments I received from athletes I treated were that they had less back pain and extremity pain, were able to breathe easier and had improved flexibility, all of which were very important to their athletics,” she says.

A reprint of that book is available for students and visitors to the DMU Library, thanks to Steven Humphrey, M.D. It is among the 112 leatherbound volumes in the Classics of Medicine Library series he recently donated to the University.

“I wanted them to be in a place where people have access to them, rather than just sitting on a shelf at my house,” he says.

Humphrey’s gift was inspired in part by the fact that he’s a long-time central Iowa resident and physician and by his own physician and friend, Dale Grunewald, D.O.’73. But his main motivation was sharing the vast history the volumes hold. He says it’s “cool” to read works by people who over the centuries drove medical discovery, many whose names are now attached to symptoms, diseases and other aspects of medicine.

“Those people had to rely on their eyes, ears and hands,” he says. “Many had no other modalities.”

The books are prominently displayed in the library, which is on the second floor of the Student Education Center. The library is also home to the Kendall Reed Rare Book Room, which contains some of the original works in the Classics of Medicine series.

“Dr. Humphrey’s fine collection of classic works provides a wonderful opportunity for students, faculty and visitors to experience the original thoughts of medical leaders and innovators over the written span of time,” says Larry Marquardt, M.Ed., M.L.S., library director. “The exquisitely bound copies welcome the reader to explore the classics of medicine without the concerns of handling or damaging a fragile original document.”

“The books are for anybody who’s interested in the way medicine evolved,” says donor Steven Humphrey, M.D.