2024 Symposium
April 18-21 • Hilton Columbus at Easton Town Center/Virtual
See all of the photos and download them here.
The Ohio Osteopathic Symposium was a great way to celebrate Osteopathic Medicine Month, showcase the Ohio profession, network with friends and colleagues, and learn the latest in the art and science of patient care. The event also provided an opportunity to celebrate as the Ohio Osteopathic Association marks 125 years of service and the Osteopathic Heritage Foundations observes its 25th anniversary.
Attendees gave Keynote Speaker Amy Acton, MD, a standing ovation following her address, which detailed her experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic when she was director of the Ohio Department of Health. “You can’t legislate your way through a problem that complicated, but you can give people the tools…and let them run with it,” she said about her role during the pandemic. “Every leader in whatever position…everyone had to solve problems in ways they never had before. My job was to hold the space and get information to you.”
Dr. Acton, who called her service “the honor of a lifetime,” said she is concerned because the country has yet to do a deep dive identifying best practices. She said the country is at risk if a new pandemic playbook is not developed.
Prior to her presentation, she visited with students who were participating in the Research and Scholarly Activity Competition. After her keynote, she talked individually with dozens of attendees and took photos.
2023 Symposium
April 20-23 • Hilton Columbus at Easton Town Center
A big THANK YOU to all of the attendees (in person and at home), speakers, moderators, exhibitors and sponsors! The Ohio Osteopathic Symposium concluded with an OMM hands-on workshop after offering 29.5 hours of AOA Category 1-A CME credit over four days. The program included a variety of topics, including lectures on Neurology and Psychiatry Medications that have Effects on Sleep; Alpha 1 Antitrypsin Deficiency; Physiologic Changes of Pregnancy and Hypertensive Disorders and Associated Management; Common GYN issues that PCPs May Encounter; and Approaches for Increasing Buprenorphine Use in Primary Care. It also included a return of the always popular Dermatology Roundtable and Orthopedics Lightning Round
2022 Symposium
April 28-May 1 • Hilton Columbus at Easton Town Center
The Ohio Osteopathic Symposium, a hybrid event held April 28-May 1, received great reviews. The event offered 28 hours of Category 1-A credits and the latest in the art and science of patient care. Keynote Speaker Adan Fuentes, DO, discussed his own battle with COVID-19 in an emotional presentation, Drowning Above Water: The Patient Experience. Other lectures included the always-popular Dermatology Lightning Round and a four-hour OMM Skills Enhancement Workshop.
2021 Virtual Symposium
April 23-25
The event, held via Zoom videoconference, offered 21 Category 1-A credits and featured COVID Expert and Infectious Disease Physician Joe Gastaldo, MD. Gastaldo serves as a COVID-19 point person at OhioHealth in Columbus where he is system medical director of infectious diseases.
The self-described “COVID warrior” is well-known to Central Ohio TV viewers in particular as he has been a constant source of information and science on local news since the start of the pandemic. In addition to countless TV, radio, and online interviews, he is featured in the new “Don’t Hesitate. Vaccinate” ad from the Ohio Department of Health (ODH) to reassure Ohioans the vaccines are safe, effective, and rigorously tested.
2021 Program
2021 Marketing Opportunities
2020 Symposium Cancelled
The Ohio Osteopathic Association and Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine regretfully cancelled the 2020 Ohio Osteopathic Symposium.
This outcome was inevitable in the face of the rapidly escalating COVID-19 pandemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had recommended that organizers cancel events consisting of 50 people or more throughout the US and Ohio officials reinforced this recommendation with a state order and state of emergency.
Most importantly, Symposium organizers recognized that osteopathic physicians are on the front lines of slowing the spread of COVID-19. Canceling the Symposium would allow them to remain in their communities to continue providing essential care and leading patient care teams.
2019 Symposium Highlights
April 24-28 • Hilton Columbus at Easton Town Center
2019 Registration Brochure
2019 Program Guide
2019 Presentations
2018 Symposium Highlights
April 25-29 • Hilton Columbus at Easton Town Center
Igniting a Movement in Primary Care
Keynote Speaker Andrew Morris-Singer, MD, challenged physicians to unite and outlined how to go from the idea of community to the creation of community.
Other program highlights included a forum theater experience, Responding to Racism in Clinical Settings (which The Columbus Dispatch featured in its May 7 edition), the always-popular dermatology roundtable, OMM workshop, an update from American Osteopathic Association President Mark A. Baker, DO, and a three-hour orthopedics bootcamp.
In addition to the education sessions, the Symposium offered opportunities to network, honor colleagues, and conduct business at the OOA House of Delegates.
2018 Registration Brochure
2018 Program Guide
2017 Symposium Highlights
April 19-23 • Hilton Columbus at Easton Town Center
A Call to Healing
The annual CME event drew a record number of physicians. All totaled, about 850 attended, including physicians, students, exhibitors, speakers, staff, and guests.
Adrienne Boissy, MD, chief experience officer at Cleveland Clinic, was the keynote speaker. Boissy -- along with her team -- has created a comprehensive program to strengthen physician and provider communication skills throughout Cleveland Clinic and has trained more than 4,000 staff physicians and house staff to date.
Other featured speakers included William Morrone, DO, an active addiction educator and social advocate in pain management, and Joselin Linder, who presented her book The Family Gene: A Mission to Turn My Deadly Inheritance Into a Hopeful Future. She teamed up with geneticist Andrea Amalfitano, DO, to discuss how her father’s mysterious illness set her on a path to investigate its origins and hopefully stop the disease before it kills her too.
2017 Registration Brochure
2017 Symposium Program Guide
2016 Symposium Highlights
April 20-24 • Hilton Columbus at Easton Town Center
Charting the Course for Health Care Transformation
The event, which drew a record crowd with more than 860 physicians, students, exhibitors, speakers, and guests, featured keynote speaker Paul Grundy, MD, founding president of the Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative and known as the “godfather” of the patient-centered medical home (PCMH) concept.
“The medical home is a human relationship of trust,” Grundy told a packed ballroom. Within the next 10 years, he said, we will live in the middle of an aging and chronic disease epidemic, but in a world where digital technologies such as social and mobile are pervasive, and where data is regarded as just another natural resource. But, there will also be the ability to analyze data in a cognitive way, which will do for clinicians’ minds what X-ray and medical imaging have done for their vision. Grundy said this will be accomplished by turning data into actionable information and where computers can analyze the meaning and context of human language, quickly processing vast amounts of information to suggest personalized options targeting a patient’s individual circumstances. When the population is proactively managed with data, he said, we begin to see positive results.
John J. Kopchick, PhD, a world-renowned molecular endocrinologist in the growth hormone area, agrees with Grundy; data is incredibly important. “Data does not lie,” said Kopchick when he delivered the JO Watson, DO, Memorial Lecture. The lecture honors significant contributors to the advancement of health care, osteopathic medical education and/or research.
While the presentations from Grundy and Kopchick were among the highlights, other notable sessions were a three-hour, in-depth session on chronic pain and addiction; Single Accreditation: An Opportunity and Challenge for Osteopathic Medicine from Heritage College Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education Robert A. Cain, DO; an update from the AOA President John W. Becher, DO, of Philadelphia, and the always-popular dermatology workshop for primary care. Several evening events were held, including a “Match and Mentor” reception that gave medical students an opportunity to informally network with experienced physicians.
2016 Registration Brochure
2016 Symposium Program Booklet
2015 Symposium Highlights
April 22-26 • Hilton Columbus at Easton Town Center
The first time Alison Levine climbed Mount Everest, she made it mere 200 feet from the top. But before her team could touch the tip of the volatile rock they had spent months trying to reach, she turned them around.
“Sometimes you are going to have to go backward to get where you want to be,” she said. “Backing up is not the same as backing down.”
Dangerous weather conditions prevented the first all-female American Everest expedition, of which Levine was captain in 2002, from conquering its ultimate goal.
Now an adjunct professor at the US Military Academy, Levine speaks around the country about the metaphors the mountain gave her for success in sport, business and life.
Climb that mountain she eventually did. In 2010 she reached the summit of Mount Everest and became one of the few people in the world to complete the Adventure Grand Slam, where athletes aim to visit each Pole and all seven continents’ highest summits.
Levine’s inspiring presentation was the capstone event of the 2015 Ohio Osteopathic Symposium.
Kenneth H. Johnson, DO, executive dean at Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, gave the esteemed JO Watson, DO, Memorial Lecture, titled Leading the Medical Education Expedition.
“We’re at truly historic moments in our profession,” Johnson said before outlining The Heritage College’s innovative strategies to offer a more comprehensive education for students and career physicians alike.
“How do we evolve our thought higher so we can have the learner add value to the health care system upon entry of it?” Johnson asked.
A few of the examples he gave for making the system even better than it already is: Creating a network-based academic health system that spans the state, incorporating technology like Cloud to transform care and to align with the rapidly changing (positive) public thought about osteopathic care and reconsidering how much authentic practice is required before students get their license.
On the Symposium’s second evening, attendees watched Alive Inside, a documentary portrait of a social worker named Dan Cohen and his program Music & Memory.
After working with elderly patients throughout his career, Cohen decided to try something new. He began to interview dementia patients’ families about what kind of music they liked before the onset of the disease. He then made a playlist for each individual and just let them listen.
The results, as evidenced in the documentary, are astounding.
Because the part of our brains that responds to music is located in the area that is last to be affected by dementia’s deterioration, patient after patient responded positively. For those whom it didn’t help bring back memories, it definitely helped improve their quality of life during the time they were listening.
The overall theme of mixing care, strength and medicine — thinking of new and innovative ways to teach and apply medical care — echoed throughout the programming. And that included caring for the caregivers, the attendees who often think so much of other people and not of themselves.
Leonard H. Calabrese, DO, of Cleveland Clinic, lectured on Osteopathic Patient Centered Care in the 21st Century: Empathy, Mindfulness and Advanced Communications.
“Mindfulness has biologic effects and results in less illness,” he reported. “It increases a body and mind’s resilience. … We should all help support a culture of change that considers this.”
He went on the present Cleveland Clinic’s Stress Free Now education program, a six-week online course for reducing stress and increasing positive emotions. It’s all about real-life skills, learned in a realistic way — everyone can do it in their own free time.
Whether climbing the mountain of improving medical education or helping patients conquer their own personal cliffs, osteopathic physicians have a responsibility to maintain and nurture their own education and personal health.
2015 Program Guide
2015 Registration Brochure
2014 Symposium Highlights
The Changing Landscape of Health Care
Barbara Ross-Lee, DO, made history when she became dean of the osteopathic medical school at Ohio University in 1993, making her the first African-American woman to lead a US medical school. A pioneer, she led the way at a time when women and minorities faced serious obstacles entering the medical field.
As a scholar and speaker, she works to raise awareness of racial and ethnic health disparities. Her keynote luncheon presentation examined the intersection of health disparities, health literacy, and policy. Ross-Lee, the first DO to participate in the Robert Wood Johnson Health Policy Fellowship, established the osteopathic profession’s Health Policy Fellowship 20 years ago. Since then, more than 200 Fellows have participated in the nationwide program.
Addiction Medicine And Prescription Drug Abuse
Lectures throughout the Symposium addressed Ohio's prescription drug abuse epidemic with topics focused on addiction medicine. Saturday's key note address by Robert Stutman, former US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) special agent, resulted in a standing ovation. Mr. Stutman made a 25-year career as one of America’s highest profile drug busters. He was a DEA agent so visible, the Columbian Cartel had at one time targeted him for assassination.
ER/LA Opioid REMS: Achieving Safe Use While Improving Patient Care
ER/LA Opioid REMS: Achieving Safe Use While Improving Patient Care was an education activity presented Sunday morning by the AOA, a member of the Collaborative for REMS Education (CO*RE), 10 interdisciplinary organizations working together to improve pain management and prevent adverse outcomes. The session was supported by an independent educational grant from the ER/LA Opioid Analgesics REMS Program Companies (RPC). and was fully compliant with the ER/LA Opioid Analgesics REMS education requirements issued by the US Food & Drug Administration. See the slide presentation: http://ooanet.org/aws/OOSA/asset_manager/get_file/77749?ver=15782
Latest research in Alzheimer's Disease
Robert Nagele, PhD, along with his research team at Rowan University School of Osteopathic Medicine in New Jersey, has developed a ground-breaking blood test that can be used to diagnose Alzheimer’s disease with 96 percent accuracy. In addition to being the first blood test for diagnosing the disease, it is also less invasive, less expensive, and more accurate than previous tests, which predicted the possibility of developing Alzheimer’s disease later in life. Nagele was ithe 2014 recipient of the JO Watson, DO, Memorial Lecture.
2014 Poster Competition Largest Ever
The annual symposium poster exhibition and competition, open to osteopathic residents, interns and medical students, grew 13 percent from 2012, and featured entries from five states, including Ohio, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Washington, and West Virginia.
In all, 92 abstracts were submitted for last year's event. Of the poster abstracts accepted for the competition, 38 posters presented case reports and 43 posters presented the findings of biomedical/clinical research. Eleven additional posters were exhibited by faculty, osteopathic physicians and other medical education, but were not entered into competition.
