Carrie Gosselink, D.P.M.’07
Went to a hospital in Milot, 75 miles north of Port-Au-Prince, with the University of Florida and Shands (where she is a resident) and CRUDEM, a health care outreach organization based in Milot.

On her week-long trip to Haiti – her third to the country – Carrie Gosselink spent 90 percent of her 16-hour days in an operating or procedure room at Hospital Sacre Coeur. She estimates she worked on about 40 cases during the week. She lost count of how many transmetatarsal amputations and ray re-sections she did.

She also operated on two ankles and an open lisfranc fracture. There were many wound and post-op infections to treat, too. Some of the biggest challenges Gosselink and her colleagues faced were language barriers and a lack of equipment like a C-arm in the operating room, negative pressure units and ventilators. The fact that some children arrived at the hospital without their parents presented issues. Also, amid the chaos, she says even finding patients she had triaged was logistically difficult.“The people of Haiti are almost universally endowed with a strength and quality of character that I rarely see in my daily work,” Gosselink says. “Many have endured great pain, loss and tragedy with heroic stoicism, and it is deeply rewarding to help when the need is so great.”

Brenda McGraw, M.H.A.’11
Went to Port-Au-Prince as a supervisory nurse specialist with the Federal Disaster Medical Assistance Team.

By day, Brenda McGraw is an R.N. and emergency management coordinator at Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines. From Jan. 23 to Feb. 3, she did outreach and community assessment as well as helped pediatric patients in Haiti. She provided follow-up care to many patients whose acute injuries had been treated. Her team saw injuries from falling debris, malnutrition, dehydration and fevers in infants they suspected were from malaria.

McGraw’s tips for getting involved in global health:

• Check into the local, state and federal programs available or non-government organizations that may be seeking additional medical professionals. Working to help others in need provides a rewarding feeling as well as critically needed care. (Editor’s note: Visit www.dmu.edu/globalhealth for ideas and information.)
• Do not go into any disaster situation to help “on your own.” Stick with a well-known, wellorganized group that plans ahead and is familiar with the country’s geography, customs, health risks, etc. Members of “rogue” groups become a burden on the system and place their safety and careers at risk.

Karl Disque, R.Ph., D.O.’07
Went to Port-Au-Prince for 10 days as part of a 20-member medical team from Rush University Medical Center.

“When you see these things happen, it really reveals character. Do you show compassion and love when you are tired, dirty, uncomfortable, unable to communicate and have no external gain? It is remarkable how many people here can say ‘yes’ to that. Not only the people I see that volunteer, but especially those who suffered terrific losses.” —Karl Disque, R.Ph., D.O.’07

A member of the Rush anesthesia team in Chicago, Karl Disque and his colleagues worked in Haiti to help with fractures, crush injuries, skin and wound care and a few emergency C-sections and general surgery emergencies. He provided care at CDTI, Adventis and General hospitals. The team treated up to 1,000 patients a day in the hospitals, refugee camps and makeshift clinics in tent cities. Professionally, he says the trip tested his troubleshooting abilities. Running out of wall oxygen during a case, working through power outages, and using just spinal anesthesia for a large open ischemic bowel and small bowel obstruction were just a few things that challenged him to be creative.

Rick Colwell, D.O.’03
Went to Port-Au-Prince through the Islamic Medical Association of North America.

As an emergency room attending at St. Luke’s Regional Medical Center in Sioux City, IA, Rick Colwell is used to acting quickly. But as an experienced disaster relief traveler, he knew helping in Haiti the last week in January wouldn’t be easy.

This was Colwell’s third disaster relief trip; he also helped in Pakistan after an earthquake there in 2005 and in the Middle East’s Gaza Strip last year.

Colwell says helping in a disaster zone means a person often has to “wing it” and use whatever is available to improvise. In Haiti his team built a nebulizer machine out of an inhaler and a water bottle to aid a child in asthmatic crisis. As part of the IMANA group, he helped set up a hospital in an abandoned amusement park. He and his fellow volunteers provided a lot of primary care, such as treating urinary infections, hypertension, malaria, asthma and colds as well as providing wound care, casting and amputations.

It started a year ago when Alger’s duties in training, recruiting and retaining IDPH’s 450 employees pushed her desire to revamp its internship program to a back burner. Ironically, the solution was an intern: James Machamer, then a student in DMU’s master of health care administration program who needed an internship for his degree. He partnered with Alger and staff of the Iowa Center for Public Health Preparedness in the University of Iowa College of Public Health to create a brochure and then, as his capstone project, a full-blown online course to train public health staff on utilizing interns.

Alger has since shared the course with IDPH bureau chiefs; the board of the Iowa Public Health Association, the professional organization for Iowa’s public health community; and the Upper Midwest Public Health Training Center, which serves public health professionals and students in Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota. She says Machamer’s seven-module course trains staff and transforms perceptions.

“When we changed the question from ‘Can you take on an intern?’ to ‘Do you have any projects you haven’t had time to do?’, of course everyone nods their heads,” Alger notes. “In the past, people thought of working with interns as ‘It’s more work for me.’ We’re encouraging them to see that it’s a way to get more help.”

That’s especially valuable as state budgets shrink and hiring gets frozen while the demand for services continues. Training interns also helps fill the future public health workforce, Alger adds.

That made the project compelling to Machamer, who completed his DMU degree last summer. He’s now a health professions investigator at IDPH, where he processes and investigates complaints and allegations relating to the practice of medicine. “What was important to me was to help even one person – a department employee, a student or one of my peers – realize their purpose,” he says. “Internships can help that happen.”

Last year IDPH began issuing challenge coins – historically, small medallions given by organizations to honor allegiance to a mission or cause – to recognize and thank outstanding interns. Appropriately, Machamer was the department’s first challenge coin recipient.

“I hope the course I helped create serves the department for a long time,” he says.

Surgical Reconstruction of the Diabetic Foot and Ankle, published last year by Lippincott Williams & Williams, features more than 800 color photographs, 400 additional illustrations and 29 chapters, each focused on different problems and step-by-step surgical techniques to deal with them.

“No textbook had dealt exclusively with surgery of the diabetic foot,” says Zgonis, associate professor in the orthopedic surgery department and chief of the podiatric medicine and surgery division, University of Texas Health Science Center-San Antonio (UTH SC-SA).

The textbook also emphasizes the team approach in addressing complex problems of the diabetic foot. As the textbook’s editor, Zgonis recruited specialists from around the world, including those in surgery, vascular surgery and plastic surgery, to write the chapters.

“The multi-disciplinary team approach in managing the diabetic foot and ankle is what students need to learn,” he notes.

Zgonis wedged the textbook project into his already crammed schedule. He is involved with UTH SC-SA’s podiatric surgical residency and directs its research and reconstructive foot and ankle fellowships. An active lecturer and author of articles and book chapters on reconstructive and revisional foot and ankle surgery, he’s also consulting editor for science and health publisher Elsevier’s Clinics in Podiatric Medicine and Surgery journal.

“I worked daily on the textbook for three years,” he notes. “It involved a lot of midnights and weekends.”

Colonel Patricia Hastings’ expertise in emergency and combat medicine is accompanied by a professional passion for the people she trains. Hastings, D.O.’83, R.N., M.P.H., FACEP, is director of U.S. Army Emergency Medical Services (EMS) based at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, home of the Army Medical Command headquarters. For three years she was director of combat medic training at the installation, during which she trained approximately 8,000 medics a year.

“You will never find anyone more sincerely dedicated to those in need, whether in conflict or in a humanitarian effort, than those medics,” she says.

Last year, Hastings became one of two editors of a new textbook, 68W Advanced Field Craft: Combat Medic Skills (Jones and Bartlett Publishers). Its 602 pages cover battlefield care for a wide variety of injuries, wound care, infection control, mental health, environmental emergencies and more. Hastings wrote the textbook’s preface and co-wrote its final chapter, “International Humanitarian Law for Combat Medics.”

“These soldiers understand the reality of war and disasters in ways that few people do, yet they still respond,” she stated in the preface. “Combat medics live the Army values every day and epitomize what is best in our Army.”

The first textbook of its kind, 68W Advanced Field Craft replaced the previously used pile of Xeroxed sheets of paper. It was named a 2009 “Hot Product” at the 27th annual EMS Today Conference and Exposition, hosted by the Journal of Emergency Medical Services. The journal’s product review team selected just 30 works out of tens of thousands of EMS products for the honor, for being “innovative, functional and potentially life-saving” and offering “remarkable improvements to patient care and provider performance.”

Hastings enlisted in the Army to pay for her medical education and says she’s since had, “at taxpayer expense, a great career.” In addition to her service in the States, she has provided care in refugee camps in Africa, trained physicians and medics in Nepal and, in 2004, worked at a combat support hospital in Iraq.

“When they stop giving me jobs I love, I’ll quit,” she jokes. “My passion is taking care of soldiers and civilians. And I like working with other countries to help them put together systems for response.”

“It’s my life – I identify as a family doctor,” he says. “I become part of my patients’ lives.”

That’s why Selznick was named “America’s Most Loved” doctor on Valentine’s Day by DrScore.com, an online patient satisfaction survey and physician rating website that began in 2005. His overall score was 9.96 out of a possible 10. To be considered for the site’s “most loved” doctor title for 2010, physicians had to receive at least 20 ratings during 2009.

“Patient feedback on Dr. Selznick during the last year was truly exceptional,” said DrScore.com founder Steve Feldman, M.D., in a news release announcing the honor. “Patient after patient described how ‘caring’ he is, how he takes time with the patient, listens and doesn’t hurry.”

While Selznick first thought the news was a “joke,” its meaning is important to him – but not because of his ego. “If a patient trusts you and likes you, he or she is more likely to do what you advise,” he notes.

For that reason, Selznick and his colleagues at Livonia Family Physicians, PC, have conducted in-house and online surveys with their patients for years. That also supports Michigan’s “medical home” approach, which includes close interaction between patients and their primary care physicians to monitor, coordinate and manage their care.

“If we’re constantly watching out for our patients, we get better outcomes,” he says.

Selznick opened his practice in Livonia 25 years ago; although three weeks passed before he had his first patients, now many of those people are still his clients. He’s also a founding partner of a geriatrics practice, Continuum Geriatric Services, and serves as the medical director for eight nursing home facilities throughout southeastern Michigan.

“I take care of four generations. I become part of their family, and they know about mine. That makes it fun,” he says. “I know a lot of people can’t say they enjoy their work 100 percent, but I probably love it to a fault.”

In 1987, Kathleen Satterfield arrived in Des Moines ready to dive into her studies in the College of Podiatric Medicine and Surgery but utterly not ready for Iowa’s winters. Luckily for her, Rebecca Stills, a secretary in the college, came to her rescue with a pair of gloves, a scarf and hat.

“I was working for Becky as a work-study student. She said she had a vested interest in keeping me healthy that winter,” says Satterfield, D.P.M.’91, an adjunct clinical associate professor at Western University College of Podiatric Medicine in Pomona, CA. “I was really touched – and warm.”

Margie Gehringer remembers how welcome Stills, shown below, made her feel when she became director of enrollment development for CPMS and the College of Health Sciences in October 2002. She also recalls how Stills “seemed to know every student.”

“She remembered each candidate who came to interview. She knew about them, their families, the schools they’d attended and where they were from,” says Gehringer, now director of enrollment management for the entire University. “And that was before we had everything captured in a database. She was really professional, organized and very personal.”

Ask anyone who knew Becky Stills, and you’ll hear those words again and again. As secretary, administrative assistant and eventually office coordinator in the CPMS dean’s office, she guided students on their academic journeys and the college in daily operations as well as through an arduous accreditation process.

“It was not a job to her,” says Tom Wicks, D.P.M.’94, a podiatric physician in Chickasha, OK . “It was more of a passion, and it showed.”

That’s why in 2004, a year after cancer tragically took Stills’ life, CPMS Dean R. Tim Yoho, D.P.M., led efforts to establish the Rebecca A. Stills Memorial Scholarship to help outstanding podiatric medicine students. That’s also why the CPMS Alumni Board recently established as its top goal to increase the fund from $61,455 currently to $100,000.

“This goal is our opportunity as alumni, as a college and as a profession to rally together and invest in future podiatric physicians,” says board member Wicks. “It’s an opportunity to make a bold statement.”

Everyone’s mother, but nobody’s fool
Norma Sinn, Stills’ mother, recalls the oldest of her five children as “a second mother” to her siblings. That’s another word often used by CPMS alumni who knew Stills, but not as in “easy pushover.”

“She was kind and had a good sense of humor, but you didn’t try to pull a fast one over on her,” says Satterfield, also a CPMS Alumni Board member. “She could spot a fake from a mile away, and she did not suffer fools lightly.”

Stills applied her no-nonsense pragmatism when she was diagnosed with lung cancer. Never a smoker, she “trained everyone on everything she did – she was very focused on making sure all her duties were taken care of,” Gehringer recalls.

Stills’ daughter, Kristin Knode, gave birth to her daughter on March 5, 2003, three and a half months before Stills died.

“She said she’d be there for the baby, and she was,” Knode says. “She was always supportive and was very strong for all of us.”

That included CPMS students. “She died the day of commencement, after the ceremony,” Yoho says. “To this day, I’m convinced she held on so as to not interfere with that week.”

Opportunity for alumni, students
Increasing the Stills Scholarship Fund is a unique opportunity to honor Stills’ memory as well as benefit students, Yoho says. “Most scholarship funds are created with huge gifts,” he notes, “but the Stills Scholarship is more grass-roots, made up of smaller gifts and many gifts.”

And every gift makes a difference. “Any financial relief provided by scholarships is always very helpful,” says Stills Scholarship recipient Valerie Tallerico, D.P.M.’10. “I was honored to be the recipient of a scholarship [named for] an individual who cared greatly for the school and specifically the D.P.M. program.”

Students are supporting the alumni board’s goal, too. The Iowa Podiatric Medical Students Association, the governing body for CPMS students, recently contributed $500 to the Stills Scholarship Fund.

“We are constantly thinking of ways to help the students of CPMS, and the Rebecca Stills Scholarship Fund seemed like the perfect choice,” says IPMSA President Ashley Smith, D.P.M.’12. “We intend to make this a recurring contribution from IPMSA, in hopes of aiding future CPMS students.”

Stills would like that. “Becky is why I came to DMU,” Wicks says. “I love what I’m doing professionally, and Becky is one of the reasons I’m doing it.”

What is an “endowed” fund?
An endowed scholarship fund, like the Stills Fund, can be created at DMU with one or more gifts totaling a minimum of $20,000. That amount can be given in annual payments (for example, $5,000 per year over four years) or as a planned gift (for example, via one’s will). Because only the earnings – not the principal – of endowed funds are paid out as scholarships, they benefit DMU students today and for generations to come.

Learn about other ways your donation can make a difference at DMU.