Emily Hurst, D.O.’05, has been on a path to leadership within the Michigan Osteopathic Association since her days as an osteopathic medical student at Des Moines University Medicine and Health Sciences. As she prepared to begin her residency in Michigan, she reached out to the MOA, eager to continue her professional involvement. Since then, she has been an active member, taking the helm as president in May 2024.
“I’ve been involved in the MOA since the first day I came to Michigan,” Hurst says. “Iowa is where my training for state and national engagement began. That gave me a steppingstone to the next opportunity.”
Hurst follows Andrew Adair, D.O.’98, FAAFP, FACOFP, as MOA president. Adair’s involvement began in the late 1990s as a DMU student when he connected with Eugene Oliveri, D.O., a past MOA president and American Osteopathic Association president, who invited Adair to join an AOA committee, sparking his involvement.
“When I came to Michigan, I was lucky enough to get involved at the county and state levels as well as the national level,” Adair recalls. “It was a fun thing to do and got me out of my silo.”
Hurst, a triple-board-certified physician in critical care medicine, internal medicine and hospice and palliative care medicine, works as an intensivist for the Henry Ford Health System in Michigan and serves as the medical director and virtual intensivist for Avera eCARE’s ICU. She also is the medical director of the Canterbury on the Lake Retirement Community in Waterford, Michigan. Adair practices family medicine in Clinton Township, Michigan, with the Henry Ford Health System.
Still, Adair and Hurst share a goal of growing the association's membership. During his presidency, Adair fostered relationships with the association’s four regional component societies, introduced diversity and inclusion initiatives, restructured the board and streamlined the membership process.
“Andrew absolutely laid the foundation of connecting by going to the component societies, the D.O. student orientations and graduations and meeting with the MOA Council of Interns and Residents. I’m going to continue that,” Hurst says.
Hurst plans to follow that example and show other D.O.s the importance of professional engagement. She already has made strides to expand MOA’s female membership with an annual award. “The Women of Excellence Program, an annual award and the Osteopathic Women Leaders Institute were created to acknowledge and engage the women members we have,” she says.
In addition to growing membership and engagement, Hurst’s hopes to expand MOA’s virtual educational offerings and promote the Michigan Physician Orders for Scope of Treatment — an optional medical order that specifies an adult’s wishes for care in a crisis that any health care facility in the state can access. Another ongoing priority is protecting physicians’ scope of practice. In March, she testified before the Michigan Senate in opposition to a bill that would expand the scope of practice for nurse practitioners by granting them autonomous practice authority.
But, her most important priority is engagement among current and prospective MOA members as well as osteopathic medical students, specifically at DMU.
“We want to support future leaders in the profession who attend DMU and help foster their leadership in Michigan,” Hurst says.
Building on their legacy in Michigan, this group is now creating a new one at DMU. Hurst and Adair, together with Kevin McKinney, son of Max McKinney, D.O.’69, late family medicine physician and MOA president in 1997-98, have established an endowed scholarship to support students from Michigan who attend DMU and then return to their home state.
Legacy of MOA Members
DMU has a storied history of alumni leading the Michigan Osteopathic Association. In addition to Andrew Adair, D.O.'98 and Emily Hurst, D.O.'05, notable figures include:
Max McKinney, D.O.'69, late family medicine physician and MOA president in 1997-98. William Anderson, D.O.'56, retired surgeon and MOA president 1982-83. David Best, D.O.'02, M.S., primary care and addiction medicine physician, co-owner of Best Medical Services, PLLC, in Traverse City, Michigan, member of the DMU Alumni Board and MOA president, 2021-22. Kevin Beyer, D.O.'85, internal medicine physician and gastroenterologist with Ascension Medical Group in Kalamazoo, MOA board member and president-elect for 2025-26. Khawaja Ikram, D.O.'89, orthopedic surgeon with Henry Ford Health in Jackson, Michigan, and MOA board member.