Orthopedic surgeon, Ironman, endurance athlete, triathlete, team doctor, sports medicine symposium leader and father, Gerardo Goldberger says, “Multi-tasking is second nature.”

This DMU grad gives new meaning to the phrase, “abs (and everything else) of steel.”

We all have them: those worthy projects on our to-do lists we can’t seem to get started, much less completed. Marilyn Alger, education coordinator for the Iowa Department of Public Health, and her colleagues found a way to finish one of theirs that’s now serving the entire department and their profession.

Thomas Selznick, D.O.’81, dearly loves being a doctor. The family physician in Livonia, MI, doesn’t mind the stress or long hours. He gives patients his cell phone number and always answers when they call.

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

Thomas Zgonis, D.P.M.’99, FACFAS, sees a lot of diabetic patients in his part of the world, San Antonio, TX. The disease occurs more often among minority populations, and the city is more than half Mexican- American. In addition to giving him a special interest and expertise in diabetic foot problems, that fact motivated him to produce a 448- page textbook on the topic.

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.

As for most people, life is not all good times and gumdrops for Annette Benjamin, a certified billing coding specialist in the DMU Clinic. She’s experienced divorce and has raised her teenage daughter, Gretchen, without her ex-husband’s support or involvement. But at DMU, Benjamin is known as one of the most infectiously sunny and friendly people on campus.