“Nearly one billion people are hungry every day,” Raymond Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America, stated at the fourth annual Heartland Global Health Consortium (HGHC) conference at DMU Oct. 17. “We no longer have the global stockpiles of rice and grain. The 2008 spike in food prices pushed some 100 million people into poverty.

“Our world ignores this problem at its peril,” he warned. “Food security is about our security, our morality and global health.”

Offenheiser pointed to global warming that hurts the poor the most, the world’s “broken” food aid and distribution systems, subsidized corn production that feeds cars versus people, and continued injustice toward small-holder farmers as factors that “risk a wholesale reversal in human development.” Urging actions to counter these factors, he also noted “simple things we can all do: grow better by reshaping agriculture; share better; and live healthier.”

Another conference speaker, Ric Jurgens, probed that third point as president of the board of Iowa’s Healthiest State Initiative, a privately led public effort to make Iowa the nation’s healthiest state – based on the independent Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index – by 2016.

“Individuals, institutions and the state all can benefit from having healthier people,” said Jurgens, chairman of the board and retired CEO of the grocery store chain Hy-Vee Inc. “We need people walking their dogs, pushing their babies in the stroller, playing in the backyard with their kids…We want to get families to eat together, eat on smaller plates, eat more slowly and eat more fruits and vegetables.”

HGHC is a group of Iowa colleges and universities, including DMU, that collaborate to offer international learning opportunities to students.

Luke Wenzel meets with a Women First group, part of an organization that fosters economic opportunities for women.

In the Southeast African nation of Mozambique, Luke Wenzel made some babies cry; learned to speak Portuguese; met and married his wife; and decided on a career in family practice, all during his work as a community health volunteer with the Peace Corps. “I miss Mozambique and think about it everyday,” says the first-year osteopathic student.

Wenzel has learned to follow his passions. His tenure as a computer programming major at Winona State University lasted one semester. “I wanted to do something that matters to me at the end of the day,” he says. He completed a degree in molecular biology and then participated in a three-week service trip in Tanzania, Mozambique’s northern neighbor.

“That set the hook in me. I’d never thought about the Peace Corps before, but I loved Africa,” Wenzel recalls. Months after he graduated from Winona State in 2008, he was on his way.

That decision was a leap for a guy from Viola, WI, population: approximately 700. His training included four hours of Portuguese every day, plus extra time he devoted on his own to learning the nation’s official language. He spent part of his two years in the Peace Corps in remote areas in Zambezia province, about four hours away from the nearest fellow Peace Corps volunteer.

Above, he participates
in permaculture training, an effort to improve ecological sustainability.

“There were times when babies would cry because they’d never seen a white person, and I scared them,” Wenzel recalls.

In a nation whose government declared HIV/AIDS a national emergency in 2004 – a 2010 survey reported nearly 12 percent of the population between the ages of 11 and 49 are infected with the HIV virus or has AIDS – Wenzel also devised ways to help people understand the importance of preventing and getting tested and treated for the disease.

“That was a challenge, because a lot of the women aren’t educated,” he says. “I tried to talk about it in ways they could understand: If your house has shutters, a nice roof and a door, it keeps you safe. But what if someone bit by bit poked holes in your roof? That’s what HIV does – it attacks your body and makes you sick.

“I like that aspect – to determine ways to explain things that people can understand,” he adds.

Luke Wenzel returned from Mozambique with countless memories, a spouse and daughter, and an affirmed career focus.

Offering culture- and resource-appropriate solutions to local problems, like cholera, is critical. “You tell people to always wash their hands with soap, but many don’t have soap; they can’t afford it. So they can use ash,” he notes. “You have to come up with solutions and listen to people or else you’ll find obstructions at every turn.”

He also learned that lack of access to health care in Mozambique is similar to that in his native rural Wisconsin. “That’s when I decided on family practice. I’m interested in global health and rural health,” he says. He eventually shadowed an osteopathic physician who showed him the value of osteopathic manual medicine.

“In third-world and rural medicine, I’m not going to have a lot of medical equipment,” he says. “So what better equipment could I have than my own hands?”

Left, after Luke Wenzel gave a Women First health session, participants turned on music, drawing youth and inspiring spontaneous dancing. Middle, homes typical of Macuze, Mozambique, where Wenzel worked with Women First groups. Right, Wenzel’s “surrogate” Mozambique family negotiates with his bride’s family over gifts he provided for her hand in marriage, in the country’s traditional Lobolo ceremony.

Before he left Mozambique in 2010, Wenzel and Matilde da Conceição António Moniz Lemos, a staff member of the U.S.-based nongovernmental organization International Relief and Development, were married in a traditional Mozambique wedding ceremony in which he gave her family a negotiated list of gifts (the “bride price,” or “Lobolo”). As at all celebrations in the country, music and dancing ensued.

The couple and their daughter, Dianara, now live across the street from the DMU campus.

“The people of Mozambique are the happiest in the world,” Wenzel says. “Culturally, they believe it’s your duty to help others.”

“This year’s trip is gearing up to be another outstanding experience in interprofessional education, just as last year’s was,” says Yogesh Shah, M.D., DMU’s associate dean of global health. “That experience is critical to students. Studies show that the best, most appropriate and responsible care for patients is delivered by health professionals working together.”

DMU’s first service trip to Honduras occurred in 2011; last year, the country welcomed the University’s largest-ever global health group, including 33 DMU students. Thanks to the leadership of Hiral Patel, D.O.’14, the University’s partner in country is Global Brigades, the world’s largest student-led global health and sustainable development organization.

Alumni make a powerful contribution by supervising DMU students on the University’s global health service trips. To learn more about this meaningful opportunity, contact Chris Catrenich at 515-271-1425.

As a Peace Corps volunteer in Panama, Daniel Cole introduced schoolchildren to computers and keyboarding with a $99 solar-powered laptop.

Service in the Peace Corps sent Daniel Cole and Luke Wenzel thousands of miles in different directions,  but their journeys brought both of them to DMU’s osteopathic medical program and future careers in health care.

Daniel Cole was a memorable medical student interviewee, to say the least. One Sunday, the Peace Corps volunteer flew home from Panama to Minneapolis and went directly to a mall to get fitted for a suit. That Tuesday, he interviewed at DMU; on Wednesday, at the University of Iowa; on Friday, he was on a plane back to Panama.

“One really positive part of that was that I had so much going on at the time, I didn’t have time to stress myself out over the interviews,” he says.

Above is a proud owner of one of the 24 pit latrines Daniel Cole and local residents constructed.

Perspectives gained during his two years in the Peace Corps helped, too. To get to his site in the indigenous Comarca Ngäbe-Buglé, Cole traversed the Inter-American Highway, then rode in the back of a truck till the road ran out, and then hiked 45 minutes up mountainous terrain to the village. He began his Peace Corps tenure by completing a community analysis, in which he worked with community members to determine local needs. The major projects he then helped implement included improving water safety and sanitation there, which involved repairing a 20-year-old aqueduct and building 24 pit latrines.

“For the latrines, we had to hike in all the supplies, including 90-pound bags of cement. Pouring concrete there is no easy task,” he recalls. “Still, I was lucky because I had projects I could see finished.”

Cole had had Peace Corps service on his radar since high school, when he participated with his church in a service trip in the Dominican Republic. As a psychology undergraduate at the University of Iowa, he studied abroad in Chile, where he honed his Spanish-speaking skills. After working a year as a research assistant at Iowa, he decided it was time.

“Getting ready to transition from undergraduate to medical school, I thought it would be a good time to take a break,” he says. “The Peace Corps is a way to do positive things without having to pay for it yourself.”

Those “positive things” include building relationships he now treasures.

The Peace Corps is a good option “if you’re self-directed and open to all kinds of experiences,” Daniel Cole says. “Being laid-back and having a sense of humor help.”

“The other Peace Corps volunteers I met are some of my best friends now,” he says. “The kids in the community would come to my house every day after school. I brought coloring supplies and a deck of cards. I’d have three to eight students every day hanging out, making art, playing games. I really miss the kids.”

The school was powered not by electricity – which it didn’t have – but by its solar panels, which fueled Cole’s $99 laptop. He taught the 26 middle-school children basic computer skills.

“Most had never touched a computer. They’re a really marginalized group among Latino groups and have a lot of self-doubt,” he says. “It’s funny now looking back – it was a real challenge teaching the kids to double-click. It’s a fine motor skill they’re weren’t used to using.”

Left, as a translator on the U.S.S. Iwo Jima during the U.S. Navy-led Continuing Promise mission, Cole (far left) met Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli. Middle, schoolchildren enjoyed making art, playing games and just hanging out at Daniel Cole’s Peace Corps home in Panama. Right, are a typical home and family in the community Cole served. These Ngabe women and girls are wearing “nagwas,” or traditional colorful dresses.

Given the Ngäbe name “Iyiko,” Cole also offered sessions to the adult villagers on general public health and on “soft” skills such as running meetings, seeking funding for community improvement projects and then managing them. When the Navy flagship U.S.S. Iwo Jima deployed to Central and South Americas in summer 2010 for Continuing Promise, a humanitarian civic assistance mission, the U.S. Embassy in Panama coordinated with the Peace Corps office to arrange for translators; Cole volunteered to help in Punta Peña. He met Panamanian President Ricardo Martinelli when he toured the ship and again at a swearing-in ceremony for a group of Peace Corps volunteers Cole helped train.

Through his experiences, Cole gained lifelong friendships and life-changing views. He’s now gaining medical skills he’ll use as he continues to help others, including by participating in DMU’s health service trip to Honduras in March.

“Being in the Peace Corps was a very different experience, and what I was looking for,” he says. “I learned that if I can do two years of that, I can do two years of anything.”

MHA Program Director/Chair Carla Stebbins, Ph.D., M.H.A.’93, leads the inaugural executive  residency group in a discussion about personality types and communication styles.

Leslie Williams, a health promotion specialist for a corporate wellness fitness management company in Falls Church, VA, enrolled in DMU’s master of health care administration (MHA) program because she could complete the degree online. That’s a big plus for most students in the program.

“I love my job. It was not an option for me to give up work,” says Williams, who, on weekends, also is a patient care technician in a local hospital.

One might think, then, that Williams – who’d never been in Iowa before – would be upset by the program’s new executive residencies, which require students, during their course of study, to come to campus three times, five intense days each time.

One would be wrong, however.

“It’s been great to be able to put a face with the professors and students whom I’ve been communicating with online. And the faculty are not the typical ‘Dr. Drone-on.’”
Bill Kohler, MHA student and executive residency participant

“It’s another learning opportunity that DMU offers,” Williams said at a lunch break during the inaugural residency, Sept. 12-16. “Getting to know the faculty and other students is a big plus, as is the focus on leadership and how to manage as a team.”

The residencies are designed to immerse students in real-world scenarios that integrate theory into practice. They include required curriculum as well as professional development seminars, interactive workshops, self-assessment activities and networking.

“I had my apprehensions the night before coming to campus, but meeting the faculty took the pressure off,” said Amanda Marotta, from Gladstone, MO, one of the 35 students who participated in the September residency. “I like to meet people face to face, to get to know their backgrounds and how we’re going to communicate online.”

The executive residencies support the MHA program’s overall goal of offering real-world knowledge and skills in leadership, communication and teamwork.

“We try to offer a rigorous, relevant, practical experience to students so they can immediately use the knowledge they’re gaining,” says Carla Stebbins, Ph.D., M.H.A.’93, director and chair of the MHA program. “That really engages and motivates them.”

That’s a high priority of the residencies, she adds, acknowledging that requiring students to come to campus may be an imposition. During the inaugural residency, students participated in almost nonstop discussions on topics ranging from leadership and health care human relations management to research writing and personality assessments.

“We saw a lot of light bulbs going on,” observed Carla Stebbins during DMU’s first oncampus MHA executive residency.

“We wanted to give them the biggest bang for the buck,” Stebbins says. She adds that feedback from students on the inaugural residency was very positive. “We saw exactly what we hoped to happen, happening. Students were connecting with each other, and we saw a lot of light bulbs going on as they were connecting one concept or workplace scenario to another.”

With the residencies, DMU’s MHA program gives students “the best of both worlds,” says Assistant Professor F.R. “Fritz” Nordengren, M.P.H. “Students gain from our blended approach of the best of online education and face-to-face experiences that allow them to learn and apply interpersonal skills with peers.”

Web extra: Learn more about DMU’s MHA program and watch students in action during its inaugural executive residency:

Also, view 34 photos from the inaugural executive residency group.

Flanking the Dotted Ladybugs are their coach, Bob Shoemaker, and some of their mentors, DMU podiatric medical students Katie Besselman, Alison D’Andelet and – at far right – Katrina Almeida and Raquel Sugino.

Ten fourth-, fifth- and sixth-grade Girl Scouts enter the Bako Classroom in DMU’s Student Education Center in a flurry of chatter, coats and props, including costumes, crutches and a cardboard desk. After giggles erupt when the oversized scrub pants on one girl fall to her ankles, it’s rehearsal time for a skit the girls created for the Dec. 1 regional qualifier for the annual FIRST Lego League competition. Their audience is a group of DMU podiatric medical students who, with team coach Bob Shoemaker, a retired engineer, have become the girls’ mentors.

“Welcome to Dr. Leslie’s office. She is a podiatrist who specializes in diabetes,” announces Jasmine. White-coated Leslie then sees three “patients,” girls depicting older women with foot problems.

“My feet are killing me! It feels like pins and needles all over,” bemoans the first.

“After three ankle sprains, four stretches and five tears in my leg, on top of diabetes, my feet are in rough shape,” complains the next.

“My mom has Type 2 diabetes and arthritis in her feet and ankles. She’s in a lot of pain,” says the next.

The issue among all three is familiar to podiatric physicians: When advised by Dr. Leslie to wear foot-friendly shoes, the patients refuse. “Those shoes are hideous!” cries one. “Ewww!” bellows another.

Coming up with an answer to this problem fits the theme of this year’s FIRST Lego League competition, “Senior Solutions.” Teams compete in a Lego robot game and also create a project – such as a skit or speech – designed to improve the quality of life for seniors. To define their project, the girls – the “Dotted Ladybugs” – interviewed older family members and friends about what bothers them most.

“They came up with 17 ideas, then narrowed them down to two – the rising costs of health care, and that old people’s feet hurt a lot,” Shoemaker says. The girls voted to tackle the latter. Jasmine, whose grandfather is diabetic, knew about DMU’s College of Podiatric Medicine and Surgery and Foot and Ankle clinic; she contacted Diane Marshall, C.M.A., Foot and Ankle practice manager, who connected them to members of DMU’s American Association for Women Podiatrists (AAWP). The Girl Scout group came to the clinic for a tour on Nov. 7 and then began meeting twice a week with the DMU students.

“We talked about reasons why seniors’ feet hurt – for many, it’s due to arthritis or diabetes,” says Alison D’Andelet, D.P.M.’15, AAWP president. “I told them one of the best things you can do is wear the right shoes. The problem is women may view those shoes as ugly and won’t wear them. The girls decided their project would be to make diabetic shoes that are pretty.”

The Ladybugs’ new knowledge and hard work paid off: At the Dec. 1 qualifier, they were one of five teams, among the 25 teams that competed, selected to go on to the state competition. More important, though, are the larger life lessons they had gained: Admitting their teamwork effort “had its ups and downs,” they said they coped by compromising and working together.

“And on one down day, we went home and slept on it,” one girl sagely added.

While the DMU students enjoy feeling like rock stars to the Girl Scouts, their greater hope is that the girls get excited about science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM.

“This is our opportunity to be role models,” D’Andelet says. “And they’re good kids, so smart and energetic. I’m so impressed by what they’ve done.”

Which answer is false? Wayne Wilson, Ph.D., associate professor of biochemistry and nutrition, 1) won a gold medal at age 12 in the junior division of the Scottish National Tae Kwon Do Championships; 2) has grown bonsai trees as a hobby for the past 15 years; or 3) as a teenager, had his head shaved in such a way that allowed him to style his hair into a Mohawk on weekends.

With these questions, emcees Henry and Wilson opened the University’s first-ever “Get to Know the Faculty Night,” an event sparked by student leaders seeking to build community and break down barriers among students and professors in all DMU programs. After the two faculty members posed their “Two Truths and a Lie,” participating faculty and students – strategically assigned in mixed groups in tables of eight in the Olsen Medical Center – played three sessions of the icebreaker, with students moving to different tables for each session.

Hilarity ensued.

“The best part of the event was certainly the conversations that were had at the tables, and this was the point,” Henry says.

The idea for the event sprouted from a conversation Christina “Crissy” Moynihan, D.O.’15, had last summer with an incoming student who wondered whether she would get to know her DMU faculty the way she’d interacted with her undergraduate professors.

New faces and other changes among the DMU faculty, as well as events Moynihan and some osteopathic classmates attended at the fall conference of the Student Osteopathic Medical Association (SOMA), led to further brainstorming. They reached out to the student government associations of the College of Podiatric Medicine and Surgery and the College of Health Sciences and enlisted the help of the student services office.

“The event was open to all students and faculty,” says Moynihan, president of the DMU SOMA. “We wanted students to meet faculty outside their program as well as faculty they haven’t had in class yet.”

The event fostered that opportunity. “First-year and second-year students sometimes do not get a lot of interaction with faculty unless they are in lab, are very proactive or are having trouble with a course, so this was a great, stress-free way to get to know the faculty,” says Mali Schneiter, president of the D.O. Class of 2015 and vice president of the College of Osteopathic Medicine Student Government Association (COM SGA).

Tara Hughes, D.O.’15, COM SGA president, says the inaugural Get to Know the Faculty reinforced DMU’s “caring atmosphere.”

“Not only did students and faculty get to know each other a little better, but it was an opportunity to have fun and again remember what an amazing family we have at DMU,” she adds.

Responses to a survey taken after the event further attested to its success.

“I received survey comments like ‘I’ve not laughed that hard in a long time,’” Moynihan says. “So many students came up to me afterward to say thanks, and the e-mails kept coming.”

Answer key: The “lies” Henry and Wilson offered at “Get to Know the Faculty” were their second responses.

Web extra! Watch Associate Professor and Physiology/Pharmacology Chair Matthew Henry, Ph.D., take on a DMU student in a blazing Guitar Hero match up:

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 48.8 million Americans, including 16.2 million kids, struggle with hunger. Those kids are sick more often, cannot learn as much or as well, and have significantly higher levels of behavioral, emotional and academic problems. This Halloween, DMU students struck out to counter this scary issue: On central Iowa’s “beggars’ night,” approximately 25 osteopathic and podiatric students and family members invaded the Waveland Park and Beaverdale neighborhoods not to seek treats but instead to collect donations to help stock the Des Moines Area Religious Council’s emergency food pantry. The group piled up more than 1,000 food items.

Tagged “Cans to Cure Hunger,” the effort was part of a larger program, De-feet Childhood Hunger, a national coalition of podiatric medical offices and podiatry students. Organizers Elizabeth Yurish, D.O.’15, and Katie Besselman, D.P.M.’15, expressed gratitude to the neighborhoods, the volunteers and DMU’s student services staff.

“Katie was interested in supporting De-feet Childhood Hunger, and I was inspired after attending the National Sigma Sigma Phi conference,” says Yurish, president of DMU’s chapter of the national osteopathic honor society. “Everyone had a great time.”

DMU fan Thaddeus Franklin Jr., spouse of President Angela Walker Franklin, proudly hoists the Malpractice Bowl trophies.

One might debate who is more competitive, medical students or law students, but on Sept. 29, the former showed they were more gifted on the gridiron: Both DMU’s men’s and women’s teams took the trophy in the 2012 Malpractice Bowl, the annual match-up between the University and Drake University Law School. Both DMU teams won last year, too. Started by DMU in 1998, this year’s games were played for the first time in the Drake Stadium, rather than on Drake’s intramural field. On a picture-perfect fall day, dozens of enthusiastic DMU fans cheered on the University’s women’s team to a 23-6 victory and the men’s team to a 26-13 win.

“It was great to come out on top because we had an awesome team who worked hard and had a lot of fun together,” says women’s team quarterback Kassi Schuppe, D.P.T.’14. “I think the offense especially enjoyed coming up with trick plays in practice. Playing at Drake Stadium added another level of excitement to the game. DMU had a great crowd and they really got into the game.”

Although the games are flag football, not tackle, the event was not without player injury. That didn’t dampen the excitement, however.

“The games this year were pretty intense and physical, but they were a ton of fun,” says David Cain, D.P.M.’16. “I was very happy, as the women’s coach, that girls returned from last year and some new ones showed up this year to learn something about football, put up with me again, and have a good time. Playing on the men’s team was a great opportunity to play with guys in all years of different programs and to interact with one another.”

Schuppe adds: “I have had a blast playing in the Malpractice Bowl the past two years, and I am looking forward to next year to try and make it a three-peat.”

Web extra: View 60 photos of the 2012 Malpractice Bowl.

Jonathan Wong, right, a student at Chicago College of Osteopathic Medicine and SOMA president elect, in March will hand off his Region III trusteeship to DMU student Katie Eggerman.

Katie Eggerman always knew a health care career was her destiny. “I was one of those three-year-olds,” says the second-year osteopathic medical student. That drove in part her seeking, as an undergraduate at the University of Missouri, both membership and leadership in BACCHUS, a university- and community-based network of 38,000 students focusing on their comprehensive health and safety through peer education and advocacy. She was elected by her peers to serve on the organization’s student advisory committee in 2007-08; the following year, she was elected to serve as one of two student members on the BACCHUS Board of Trustees.

“I like the opportunity to represent students,” she says. Her drive to advocate for students made her a natural to seek a leadership role with the Student Osteopathic Medical Association (SOMA): In October, Eggerman was elected a trustee for SOMA Region III, which represents the organization’s chapters at seven osteopathic schools in Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas. She’ll begin her term in March.

“SOMA introduces you to the osteopathic profession. It’s the students’ steppingstone to the American Osteopathic Association, which will be our home for the rest of our careers,” she says. “I’m excited to make sure SOMA stays strong at DMU; it’s really important for students. And we’re talking up D.O. Day on the Hill next March, as we hope to get more DMU students to go.”

Eggerman’s trustee duties include communicating with and helping SOMA chapters in the region with activities such as membership recruitment, programming and fundraising. She also wants to foster effective relationships between SOMA members and student government leaders at each school. “These students often go to the same conferences,” she notes. “Here at DMU, we all get along, but that’s not the case at all schools. There’s so much we can do without turf fights.”

When students join SOMA, they receive Netter’s Atlas of Human Anatomy with their paid membership. That’s a “great perq,” Eggerman says, but SOMA offers much more.

“SOMA has so many opportunities for student leadership,” she notes. “We have great people in our region. You automatically have this connection, a sort of extended family of cousins. We learn from each other.”