OU-COM graduates
31st class of physicians
111 medical students
to participate in June 5 ceremony
The Ohio University
College of Osteopathic Medicine hosts a noted orthopedic surgeon and
alumnus as the keynote speaker at the college’s 31st commencement
ceremony Saturday, June 5, in the Templeton-Blackburn Alumni
Memorial Auditorium.
Charles T. Mehlman, D.O., M.P.H., FAOAO, who will
address the graduates and guests at Saturday’s ceremony, is a
pediatric
orthopaedic surgeon and professor of pediatric orthopaedic surgery
at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center in the Division of
Pediatric Orthopaedic Surgery. He also serves the hospital as
director of musculoskeletal outcomes research and director of
pediatric orthopaedic resident education. He is a 1989
graduate of OU-COM.
An accomplished scholar, Mehlman has published more
than 80 peer reviewed publications and nearly the same number of
book chapters and other scholarly works on a full range of
orthopedic diseases, deformity, trauma and tumors in children. He
also has received numerous honors and awards for his research and
scholarly publications, including OU-COM’s Medal of Merit in 2006.
Through the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical
Center’s Healing the Children program, Dr. Mehlman travels regularly
to Shanghai, China, to volunteer medical service.
Ohio University President Roderick J. McDavis, Ph.D.,
will preside over the ceremony, and OU-COM Dean Jack Brose, D.O.,
FAAFP, will provide remarks and announce awards.
Robert S. Juhasz, D.O., FACOI, Trustee of the
American Osteopathic Association (AOA) and a 2006 Honorary OU-COM
Alumnus, will bring greetings from the AOA. Juhasz serves as the
medical director at the Cleveland Clinic’s Willoughby Hills Family
Health Center and is an associate clinical professor at OU-COM.
Christopher J. Loyke, D.O., FACOFP (’88), immediate
past president of the Ohio Osteopathic Association (OOA), will bring
greetings from the organization. Loyke practices family medicine in
Northfield, Ohio, and is a clinical associate professor of family
medicine at OU-COM.
Timothy J. Barreiro, D.O., FCCP, FACOI (’97), board
secretary of the OU-COM Society of Alumni and Friends and 2006
recipient of the OU-COM Recent Graduate Award, will extend greetings
from the college’s alumni. Barreiro practices pulmonary critical
care medicine in Youngstown and is a clinical assistant professor of
critical care medicine at OU-COM.
The graduates will join the ranks of 2,565 alumni, of
which 60 percent practice in Ohio, with some 44 percent working in
rural and underserved communities of fewer than 50,000 residents.
Besides providing
health care,
the physicians also conduct research, scholarship and community
service. Fifty-two percent of OU-COM alumni practice in primary care
fields.
In a study published in April of this year, OU-COM
was ranked as number one in Ohio and one of the top U.S. medical
schools for graduating physicians who choose to practice in rural
areas.
In the study, published in the April issue of
Academic Medicine, OU-COM tied for 11th place among all medical
schools in the country granting M.D. or D.O. degrees. The greatest
percentages of OU-COM alumni practicing in rural areas graduated
between 1988 and 1997.
According to the study, about 21 percent of OU-COM
alumni were providing medical services in rural areas during 2005,
the year the data was collected.
|