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To better serve you, Osteopathic Family Physician has moved to a quarterly publishing schedule beginning with the Winter 2023 issue. We've retooled to give you more high-quality, focused osteopathic content. Although we all have incredibly busy lives, marking time through the movement of the seasons is something that generally makes sense across the board. The quarterly publication format gives us more time to review original research and to better understand and make informed decisions about the range of content we can offer you, our readers.
Different artists have painted the Mona Lisa and the resulting interpretations of this famous painting are distinctly theirs. Artists like Roy Lichtenstein, Sonia Delaunay, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Miro and others. The results are not copies of the Mona Lisa, but rather a way that another artist visualizes Leonardo da Vinci's famous painting. And that’s valid.
As people and physicians, our views are colored by our teachers, our parents and our patients. We come to a unique perspective that helps us script our experiences onto the person in front of us.
We all view certain experiences from our unique perspectives and retell them to attempt to help others understand and grow. At times, meeting with other DOs, they tell me that they have “lost” the art of OMM. It’s doubtful that could ever happen, as they are gentle with surgical techniques, spreading the fascia back over, and after the delivery of a child by discussing back pain or making sure things are done symmetrically.
Our education runs deep, and our training augments our knowledge. As we work alongside others, sharing what we know and learning from our MDs has been a great adventure. We have sought parity for our students and our educational differences.
We are one voice of healing for our patients. Our one wish is for them to be as healthy as possible given the unique attributes of their health. What makes us distinct from MDs is our gentle touch—either physically through examining our patients or mentally and emotionally through our gentle demeanors. Our training and our relationships with our patients and with the many accomplished physicians and students we work alongside add up to a cumulative body of knowledge that is holistic and gentle.
As we continue to learn from our students’ voices, I want to share two letters to help you appreciate the challenges and the grace of our student doctors who are well on their way to becoming exceptional physicians.