Thursday, August 1, 2019
Thu, 01 Aug 2019 | Asa Keimig | LUCOM Marketing
Liberty University College of Osteopathic Medicine (LUCOM) student-doctors from the Class of 2022 spent time during their first week of class out in the Lynchburg community performing pre-participation exams on student-athletes from New Covenant Schools.
Under the direction of LUCOM faculty members, Liberty’s osteopathic medical students offered sport physicals on patients from 5th-12th grade. New Covenant athletes had vitals, height, weight and vision checked by the medical students prior to their physical. The physical exam included ENT, lymphatics, dermatologic, abdominal, cardiac, respiratory, neurological and musculoskeletal.
“I’ve had my fair share of sports physicals, so I wanted to experience being on the other side, giving the physicals,” said Bless Jung, Class of 2022. “Not only are we serving our community in the moment, we are building relationships with community members that we may serve for years to come. This event is also very beneficial for student-doctors to put their medical school practice into real world play.” Jung plans to do a Sports Medicine Fellowship following the completion of his residency training. “I shadowed my sports medicine physician at Virginia Tech, and the relationships with and continuation of care for athletes really drew me into this profession. In sports medicine, both doctor and athlete need to communicate the reason for their care, whether it is to return to play or to protect their health,” he said.
Sigmund P. Seiler, MD, assistant professor of family medicine, was encouraged by the number of student-doctors that volunteered their free time to participate in the event. “This experience provides a good service to the community and allows our second-year students to have the chance to work with actual patients in a supervised environment,” he said. “The faculty can observe firsthand the skills of the students and help educate and correct in real time.”
For Dr. Seiler, as a faculty member, one of his greatest desires while at LUCOM is to impart meaningful knowledge and skills onto the future physicians. “My heart is to show and teach them to be compassionate, empathetic clinicians who can treat not just the physical and emotional, but also the spiritual needs of our patients. To help them realize the calling God has on their lives,” he added.
Spending time volunteering in the Lynchburg community allows Liberty osteopathic medical students to further develop their medical experience while also nurturing the doctor/patient relationship. “In a situation like this when we are working with kids, I think a challenge we faced was getting them to feel comfortable and trust us,” said Abigail Barley, president of LUCOM-American College of Osteopathic Pediatricians (ACOP). “Many of them came without their parents and weren’t really sure how to feel being in a room with two medical students and a doctor. We did our best to joke around, be light-hearted and have fun to get them to relax.”
Raena M. Pettitt, DO, chair and assistant professor of family medicine, is the course director for the Patient-Centered Medicine (PCM) Course at LUCOM and continuously encourages students to participate in events such as this where they can gain valuable experience. “Events like this demonstrate the importance of continued practice of their history and examination skills,” she said. “They are able to interact with teenagers and parents, while implementing the knowledge they learned in their PCM courses.”
Liberty’s osteopathic medical students and supervising LUCOM faculty members performed sport physicals for over 25 student-athletes from New Covenant Schools.
To view images of the event, visit Facebook.com/LibertyMedicine.