June 6, 2025 • 38 mins
Host: Joseph Knight
Guest: Dr. Duane Ehredt, Dean of the LECOM School of Podiatric Medicine
Joseph is joined by Dr. Duane Ehredt, Clinical Professor and Dean of The LECOM School of Podiatric Medicine, and they discuss his journey from Altoona, Pennsylvania, to Cleveland, Ohio, and his transition to podiatry. He emphasizes the immediate impact of podiatric care, the technical challenges, and the growing need for podiatrists due to an aging population. LECOM's podiatry program integrates with the broader osteopathic philosophy, offering unique clinical training opportunities. Dr. Ehredt highlights the affordability of LECOM, its pre-accreditation status, and his vision for the school's growth and reputation. He also shares his personal interests, including his role as a naval officer and hobbies like building Star Wars props.
Listen In!
Thanks for listening to this episode of LECOM Presents: Heroes In Training
________
Please visit LECOM.edu for to learn more about the educational opportunities available at our institution.
Guest: Dr. Duane Ehredt, Dean of the LECOM School of Podiatric Medicine
Joseph is joined by Dr. Duane Ehredt, Clinical Professor and Dean of The LECOM School of Podiatric Medicine, and they discuss his journey from Altoona, Pennsylvania, to Cleveland, Ohio, and his transition to podiatry. He emphasizes the immediate impact of podiatric care, the technical challenges, and the growing need for podiatrists due to an aging population. LECOM's podiatry program integrates with the broader osteopathic philosophy, offering unique clinical training opportunities. Dr. Ehredt highlights the affordability of LECOM, its pre-accreditation status, and his vision for the school's growth and reputation. He also shares his personal interests, including his role as a naval officer and hobbies like building Star Wars props.
Listen In!
Thanks for listening to this episode of LECOM Presents: Heroes In Training
________
Please visit LECOM.edu for to learn more about the educational opportunities available at our institution.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
You're listening to lee KOM presents Heroes in Training. The
Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, also known as lee COOM,
has been providing training to heroes all across the globe
since nineteen ninety three. This podcast gives you an insider
look at the stories of triumph and hope from both
(00:22):
former students and faculty, helping you decide if lee COOM
is the right choice for your higher education. Let's start
the show.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Welcome everybody too, Leecom's Heroes in Training. I am your host,
Joseph nine, and I am with They're a friend of
mine who works over em Peddietary. Mister, should I say
doctor Dwayne Eric, correct?
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Yes, that's correct.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Well, great, welcome to the podcast. Apreciate it. You know what,
before we go into anything, please tell everybody your proper title,
because I wouldn't know how to how to say it all,
but go ahead. Sure.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
I'm doctor Dwyer Junior. I'm the clinical Professor and Dean
of the School of Pediatric Medicine here at the Lake
Erie College of Ostia Pathley Medicine.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
All right, and how long have you been in leecommon?
Speaker 3 (01:12):
So I've been in leecomm for about one hundred days now.
I've spent the last twenty years of my life in
northeast Ohio and Cleveland's where I went to school and
did my training and started a building a name for
myself professionally speaking. This past January, I was recruited over
to be the dean here at Lee Coomm and I
moved at the beginning of the year. And I've been represents.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Okay, great, great to have you. You gets to put
up with me a lot, folks, So let's let's go.
Let's start off with some basics, like can you tell
me a little bit? Where were you born? Where you've raised?
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Yeah, so you know, I was born and raised in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Okay,
so I'm an eight one four kid, just like everyone
from around here. But I tell everyone I was born
and raised in Pennsylvania, but I kind of grew up
as an adult in Cleveland, right, Okay, So when, like
I said, when I moved to Cleveland, I thought I
was gonna be there for four years, do my school,
and come back. You know, I always wanted to come
(02:06):
back home, but for one one reason or another, the
profession kind of kept me in Cleveland, and I just
kind of, you know, grew the professional ranks there and
you know, when the timing was right, I got that
opportunity to come back here. So I'm very very happy
to come back. But yeah, I was. I was born
here in Pa. Laurel Highland's kid. You know, everything uphill,
(02:26):
you know, coal mining, railroad industry kind of place is
where I grew up. Yep. And the big thing for
me was was football. So football is real big in Pennsylvania.
It was real big for me back home, and it
was one of the things really that kind of got
me into medicine ultimately.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
But that's who I am, right, and that's gonna be
my next question too, What what led you to take
medicine as a profession.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
So it's like I said, you know, I was you know,
I love football growing up, right, And I was a
pretty smart kid. You know. I got good grades and
honestly didn't have to really try too hard to get
good grades in school. But I was a kind of
a short stocky. I'm not out of shape, but it
wasn't the most athletic kid by any means. But I
looked up to all the kids that played football, and
(03:10):
I wanted to be like the guys that played Friday
night lights, you know. And so from a very early
on time period in my life, I was about eight
nine ten, I knew that I was never going to
be as big or fast, as strong as everybody else,
but if I used my brain, I could kind of
make myself that way. So I literally would go to
sheets It's convenience stores started out tuna, and I would
(03:31):
pick up the men's health magazines and I would flip
through and I would read and learn about like weightlifting
and running and things like that. And that just got
me really interested in the human body as a machine.
And you know, obviously playing sports you get injuries and
things like that too, So I just had a real
good appreciation for the doctors and athletic trainers and everybody
that took care of us. And so, you know, I
(03:53):
kind of dedicated my life as a you know, you know,
pre teen and teenager to learn learning how to make
myself bigger, faster, stronger, which led to an appreciation of
like exercise science and exercise physiology. And I really thought
that the interesting the human body was really interesting. Additionally,
like I said, I had lots of doctors and whatnot
(04:14):
that I looked up look up to as a kid,
and you know where I grew up, you know, we
didn't really have a whole lot of resources, and you know,
I didn't really have much of a way out of
the city, so to speak. And so I kind of realized, like,
you know, I like this. I like the human body.
I have an appreciation for it. You know, I have
half a brain in my head. I think I can
make this work if I work hard, Like I could
(04:35):
become a doctor too someday. And so from a very
early age, probably fourteen, I knew that I wanted to
be a doctor of some sorts, you know, and that
led me to go to where I went this undergrad
which is junior out of college. I specifically picked junior
out of because of their prehealth record, like they both
like one hundred percent place right in the medical schools
and things like that. Interestingly enough, my experience, I said
(05:00):
juniata I was quite opposite that it was when I
was in high school. So in high school I just
showed up. I got good grades, worked really hard at football,
and was very successful on all endeavage. Because I worked
harder stuff, I wasn't good at but kind of got
by with very mental effort. In the academic side of things.
Juniorata was the opposite. I got humbled real quick at Juniata.
(05:21):
In the academic sector. It was very hard and just
showing up was not enough to get by. Now, my
work ethic that I'd garnered over the years in football
and the high school that I went to was very
prestigious school a lot led me to like pretty quick
success in the football field, and I was getting all
these like you know, you know, recognition awards, things like
(05:45):
that I was one of the top rushers in the
country and things, and getting a lot of success. But
in my sophomore year, I got my letter for my
health profession's advisor that said, you know that I was
unlikely for me to make it into his career in medicine.
I should consider i'll turn of options. I didn't have
any alternative options. So I sat down with her and said, look,
(06:05):
I want to make up you know, let me even
make another plan here, and so we did. I kind
of figured out what I was doing right and what
I was doing wrong, reprioritized my time, and got much
better grades in my second third year. Along that course, though,
you know, she knew that I was interested in medicine,
specifically in bone and joint like at that point, I
(06:28):
kind of knew I want to do orthopedic type stuff,
bone and joint surgeries of interest of mine. I knew
how surgeons had, like their lifestyle, what that was like,
and she, you know, recommended I actually looked into podiet
you believe it or not. Before that, I didn't know
anything about the profession. I knew what it was like,
I knew what part of the body they treated, but
I didn't know that it was a separate school system
(06:49):
and a separate educational track, right. She educated me on that,
and I've followed up and took her advice, you know,
looked into it, did shadowing, visit at schools, that kind
of thing, and ultimately fell in love with the profession
and then applied and then the rest is kind of history.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Well, and that's one of the cool things here, folks.
It's nobody really understands that there's specialties like pedietry, and
for me, who's never been in the medical field to
actually understand that there is different things that you know,
we always think the doctor knows it all, like it's
all in one thing. So that's kind of cool to
know that, you know, you picked out what you felt
(07:29):
like could work for you and you went right into
that setting. So that's crazy. You know, your journey from
being a practitioner now you're the leader, you're the dean
of p dietary. You know, can you walk us through
that little path that helped you get to become the
dean of here in lecom?
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Yeah? You know, the interesting thing is a very linear path.
Although it wasn't my goal necessarily, you know, when I
got into pediatry, you know, almost twenty years ago, it
wasn't a goal of mine to become the deans. Sometime
I did recognize early on, like you can kind of
tell as a student who really knows what you're talking
about and who doesn't. And you know, that kind of
(08:11):
interested me, you know, as a student, and I kind
of always told myself, I'm never going to be the
person that doesn't know what they're talking about, right, you know, no,
what we like you mentioned, we don't all know it.
We don't know everything. In medicine. It's a huge body
of knowledge. That's why we have specializations, right, But I
knew that I could focus on my area of expertise
(08:32):
and become truly proficient and if not the best at it,
and feel very confident in talking to people and anything
that comes in the door that's within my air of expertise,
I feel pretty confident that I have a good plan
to help that patient out. And so from an early age,
I just focused on academic excellence. I mean even as
a second year student going into third year clinical uortations.
(08:52):
As a student, I wanted to make sure that I
set myself apart from all my other classmates. So silly
things like logging, Like as a dent, you gotta log
your patients, and some people just kind of take that
as take that for granted. It's just a check in
the box. You know, no one's watching. Maybe that's true.
I paid attention. I wanted to have the most logs
of anybody. I wanted to have like a thousand logs
(09:14):
in my first year. That same thing for residency training, Right,
you do surgeries and stuff, you gotta log them, and
believe it or not, sometimes they get missed or people
forget about them. I was always like super excited to
log my cases, just because I wanted to make sure
that I was doing everything possible to set myself up for,
you know, that next level of success. And so it
(09:35):
was just a thought process like I'm gonna do everything
possible here to make sure like I was always seeing
in class. Now Here at Koon we have a tennis
policy and whatnot. Other schools they don't have that. Believe
it or not, my class superlative at I went to
ken State, my class superlative was most likely to be
seen in class because I was always sitting in the
front row asking questions and whatnot. I just wanted to
(09:58):
do well for the patients and I wanted to you
set myself apart as someone who knew what they were doing.
It wasn't a goal to be the dean per se.
It just led to the next step for me, which
was getting one of the more prestigious regency programs in Cleveland,
and that was at Saint Business Charity Medical Center in
Case Western Reserve University. Historically, in our profession, it was
one of the top programs. So getting it was a
(10:19):
real honor. And when you're there, you work a lot, right,
you work your tail off, and you build that resiliency right,
and you learn about yourself, You learn about what your
strengths and weaknesses really are and in that case, failing
a lot and learning from that was building that resilience
that I think that leads to being a good leader.
(10:39):
You know, you can't be a leader if you're not
understanding what goes on in the trenches. Corre and I've
failed a lot yourself, you know, And so we did.
We weren't afraid to fail. We took a lot of
chance on things. We learned a lot in that program
and that led me then to the next step, which
was a very busy surgical practice in northeast Ohio. It
(11:00):
provided me a lot of opportunities see patients and deals
really complicated pathology and get my numbers up for board certification.
And it's it's something that's really hard on our profession
to get surgical board certification. Not everybody gets it, and
fortunately here Leek we got a lot of providers that
have it. So we got a good group of good
group of people. But it was really important for me
to get that at that point. And when I did that,
(11:24):
that opened up a bunch of more doors because all
of a sudden, now you know, schools and things were
you know, looking to me for my expertise which led
me into academia. And I was only thirty years old
when I started in academia, so you know, it's still
pretty young. I mean there are many students that are
even older than me. I think we even have maybe
(11:44):
one student that's still older than me, which is kind
of interesting. But you know, my I guess my experience
in that process has just been one that I'm with
you in the process. I'm not someone behind the desk
or somewhere off and eat or you know, I'm actually
one of you. And you know that that leadership track,
(12:04):
you know, this is something that I learned from THEOS.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Yeah, that's great. You know. So from that moment to
coming to Lecon and being offered the position of dean,
how did that transpire? How did it's just something that
you inspired that that was your next step to do well?
Speaker 3 (12:23):
Like I said, it wasn't necessarily the next step that
I was looking for. I mean, yes, I was always
looking to move up right, you know, I kind of
maximized my growth where I was in Cleveland. You know,
at that time, there wasn't really anywhere for me to
go up from there. And again, although it wasn't that
I was looking to be a dean necessarily, I definitely
(12:44):
was looking to lead, you know, I wanted my own
group of people to lead, and so that opportunity came
about via you know, recruiting efforts, and it was very
interesting to me. And it was a little bit of
a process. You know, that's kind of a big jump
from from fact to administration and a move that wasn't
that far remove, but still a move and whatnot. And
(13:05):
so it took a little bit of time to get
it figured out. But those pretty simple process once people
the trigger, I mean, I was here in a heartbeat,
and you know, they made it very easy for me
to be able to move here and get planted so
I could get the work.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
So for you viewers out there, when I first saw
him walk in, I thought he was a student. Next
thing I know he was the deans, I'm like wow.
For viewers who are watching this, podcasts are still exploring,
you know, the healthcare system, like looking for different positions
and careers. Why would they be why would they be
interesting in pedietary? Why should they choose p dietary?
Speaker 4 (13:42):
So so pedietry first off, right, we as human beings,
right for most of us, that are a normal, able
body to walk right, and take our fee for granted
most of the time.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Right.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
The process of evolution or creation or whatever we want
to believe in is giving us these two feet and
these extremities to walk around the earth. It's the only
part of the body that's in constant communication with the earth. Right.
So if you ever had a foot problem, even as
simple as like an ingrown nail, it's really bothers today.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Right.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
So being a pediatrist is actually you get to see
immediate return on your investment. Like when when someone comes
in the door, I don't have to give them some
sort of bad news. It may take months of unraveling.
I can say, oh, you have an ingrown nail. I
can immediately cut that out and you'll feel instantly better.
And that's a good feeling to be able to give
(14:31):
to someone.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Right.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
So to see the you know, the fruits of your
labor immediately in front of you is just gives you
as a person a lot of positive feedback to say, oh,
this is fun, I want to do this again, you know,
so that like that burnout and that you know, the
drudgery of medicine that some professions suffer with, you know,
I'm not saying we don't have any you know, we
(14:53):
self the chart and everything too, you know, but it's
a lot of fun. Right So the field itself is
technically very challenge and fun. Additionally, we have, you know,
a very we have an aging population right as a
whole our country continues to get older. It also continues
to get sicker with diabetes, kidney disease, other medical comorbidities
(15:16):
that lead to lower extremity problems. So there's a huge
need for our profession, for our area of expertise right now. Okay,
it's at an all time high. Ironically, though, we actually
have a dip in applicants store schools because over the
last twenty years or so, other areas of medicine, osteopathic, allopathic,
(15:36):
you know, pa, all these other schools have started opening up.
And that being that we're such a small community, right
there's only eighteen thousand practicing pediatrists. Most people don't know
about the profession, so they don't apply. They get sucked
into these other schools, and so we're actually getting a
decrease in applicants right now. So if you're a person
listening that's interested in making a living right in the
(15:59):
profession in medicine period, you're like buying at the dip
right now. And if it was like the stock market, right, Okay,
we got a bunch of pediectors that are graduating or
I'm sorry, they're retiring, they're not gonna be able to
sell the practices anybody, right, If there's nobody graduating who
they can sell to correct, the job opportunities are an
all time high. They would negotiate salaries. We're surgeons, right,
(16:20):
so you can be a proceduralist and help people by
doing things to them either in the office the operating room.
And we have this very broad profession that allows you
to practice kind of in a primary care setting but
also surgical subspecialty setting. Okay, okay, So it's just a
very rewarding career that you can build, you know, your
(16:41):
skill set around and you can build a following around
and find a purpose in life and ultimately, you know,
provide for your family.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Well that's very interesting. Now, what are the biggest misconceptions
you find that people ask questions about the dietary?
Speaker 3 (16:59):
So I always tell people the heart. The hardest part
about being a pediatrist is telling people you're a pediatrest.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Right.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
It's a joke, right, but it's true. You people just
don't know what it is that we do. They don't
know what our level of training is. They don't know,
you know, are we doctors or not? Or what are we?
So I think the biggest misconception is that we're not
some sort of physician. We are, right. We we go
to a four year graduate medical education system very similar
(17:28):
to osteopathic allopathic pathway or kind of like dentistry too. Right,
we're kind of like a hybrid between the dentistry curate
curriculum and osteopathic curriculum. Okay, we you know it's not
never do just two feet walk into my office. It's
a person with foot problems that walks in, right, So
we have to understand the whole body as well, right,
(17:49):
the old saying, you know, the foot bones connected to
the leg bone, the leg bones connected to the you know,
there's some truth to that, right. So the foundation for
our patients, right, especially this holistic type of setting that
we are here at Lee coomp. You know, it kind
of starts from the ground up, and so you know,
we are part of like part of the mainstream healthcare system.
(18:10):
I just think that people don't realize that are the
three letters after our last name, what that means exactly right,
So it's doctor of potetric Medicine. I'm a DPM. It's
it's difficult for people to conceptualize anything other than MD
or d O right, right. But but we're also out there,
you just like the dentist or DDS or d M
(18:30):
D right, and they're they're well respected areas of expertise.
So wait, but I think that's the biggest misconception is
that people just don't know what our level of training is.
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Speaker 2 (19:44):
Right And I think even for me, you know, until
we started discussing and then learning different medical fields, I
did not know there was like so many intricacies to it,
like different like you say, specialties, different training for everybody.
I always think that it's always just one doctor. You
never think of like oh he you know, he just
he deals in pedietary. You didn't have to really go
(20:06):
to school, like yeah, like another doctor. So you know,
that's one of the things that that really surprises being
sitting here and you going over everything it is. It's
like educating meet folks on learning what you're doing and
your appreciation for and you have a very strong appreciation
for what you're doing. Speaking of that, LEECOM has a
(20:28):
strong reputation, particularly in the roots of orthopedic medicine. You know,
how does the school of p dietry with Leecom's broad
whole person you know, healthcare philosophy work with you.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Well, like I said, you know, the foot is the
foundation of the human being, that that whoever that person is,
that is walking into your door. And that's the root
of osteopathic medicine, I think, is thinking about the functional
aspects of like form follows function, right, and the body
can heal itself, right, and so thinking of it from
a purely biomechanical perspective, like, we fit directly into that, right,
(21:08):
but with our students specifically right that they are side
by side with the austroopathics students taking most of the
same classes in the first couple of years. Of course,
we do have an emphasis in lower extremity anatomy, and
we have some uh you know, some some special special
classes on the operating room and how to be kind
of a surgeon because we are a procedure lists right, right,
(21:30):
And we also have a very specific pedietry course or too, right,
so potiatric medicine, biomechanics and surgery. But but all in all,
you know, it's very integrated, you know, into the system
that's already built, built in place here at LECOM and
the expectations of our students are the same, right, it's
(21:52):
you know, they're taking again, same biochemistry, same physiology, same
general anatomy, pharmacology, all that kind of thing, and they're
they're being you know, evaluated the same as any other
physician and training you don't.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
I'm going to jump around because I do have some questions.
I took the time to like kind of study and
ask some questions here, I'm going to jump questions around.
So what aspects of being a dean are you excited about?
Is it the hands on being with students, working with them.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Yeah, well you can do that as a faculty member.
So so as a faculty member, that's the person that's
really the hands on person. Quite frankly, this is my
opportunity to actually take command and lead an entire school, right,
So that's what I'm mostly interested in, right is being
able to set the standard for what I expect the
faculty to do and see them grow as well as
the students. I Mean, sometimes, you know, in medicine thing,
(22:47):
especially in higher education, things can be you know, kind
of political or whatever. I'm not afraid to stand up
for what I believe in, you know, and I think
that's something that kind of le calm has always been
that way, you know, And so I think I've hit
that fit that mold as well to leave from the front,
and so being a dean. There's only eleven schools in
(23:07):
the country by the way, right, so I'm really one
of eleven. It's a big deal in my profession. It
might not be as big of a deal to everyone
here because you've been doing it so well for you know,
thirty five years, but for our profession this is a
huge deal. Everybody wants to know what I'm up to.
Everyone wants to know what we're doing here at lecome,
and so to have that opportunity is the biggest, you know,
(23:27):
responsibility anybody in our profession can have because everyone's looking
at us to be doing the right thing.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Right.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
So I've been kind of, you know, looking at it
from the sidelines as a faculty member to some extent.
Right now I get to be the bus driver, you know,
And so that's one I'm mostly looking forward to, is
being able to see truly how far can we take
things here with the new school and with our students.
And it's been very i mean literally the last hundred days.
(23:57):
I was kind of joking with doctor Silvia said, I
don't remember in my life before coming here, because I've
done so much here in like one hundred days that
I have done the last ten years, not that I
don't remember it, but it's been a while. It's not
really overwhelming, just a lot of good stuff. It's a
lot to do.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
So yeah, you know what, I kind of feel the
same way when I first got here, So it was
I wouldn't say overwhelming. It's been no joy working here.
And now thanks to you know, Lee Kom's hero and
podcast train you know, Heroes in Training podcasts, we get
the opportunity a should I say, you get the opportunity
to really talk about, you know, promote pedietry. That again,
(24:38):
it's not really too outsiders don't really know about that.
So you know Leecom school of you know p diietry
is always just setting high standards. What are the two
specific things lee Coom does differently from other schools.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
Well, first and foremost, I get the leverage of strength
that Leecoon has already put in place, right, that that
high level of you know, systems based clinical sciences right
and simultaneously completing our our productory specific coursework. Okay, so
you know, and not to name names, or anything. But
(25:17):
but but I know what everybody else is doing, and
and here at LECOM, right, we're able to get all
our didactic stuff done in those first two years, right,
and make sure that we appropriately assess them anyway that
they are ready to go so that they get into
the third year, that they are nothing but clinical training
once they take boards and get into the third year. Right,
(25:37):
And that's where we are right now. Our students are
getting ready to take boards and proceed a third year.
And that is not that way with all the other schools, Okay,
it's you know, just isn't okay. So we have something
very unique here where we're part of the system.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Right.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
The the the top level physicians and administrators here respect
us a lot. They want us to be part of
the health system as legit partners are not just some
sort of adjunctive thing. And so our students are the
same way, right. Their expectations of students, My students are
the same as ostopathic students, and they're side by side
in the clinics, you know, and with us one on one, right,
(26:18):
we have literally one on one, you know, doctor to
student teaching going along in the clinic. We have around
health system right, it's a good health system. I was
just meeting with doctor Hanson last week and I kind
of joked when she showed me around the hospital system, said,
did you build this for me?
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Like?
Speaker 3 (26:38):
I feel like this was set up for pediatry to
do really well. You know, we kind of joked about it.
I don't know if that's true, and I don't think so.
I think it's just a coincidence, but it's true. Right,
we have a system in place here now, new er
cath lab, Amatory service Center, all these things are things
that pediatrits use a lot of. So that's perfect for
(26:59):
me and our students because we're gonna get literally five
minutes down the road right direct access to you know,
cutting edge technologies that as real patients, not a simulation.
This is the real deal, and I don't think other
schools can offer that.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
You know, when we're gonna go into technologies, you just
bring that up, you know what kind of you just
pretty much described all the different the equipment that you
see over there at the new hospital. With that, you know,
can you give me an idea, like with the podietry,
what students are able to get into and help out
(27:35):
with that prepares them for modern you know, medicine today.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Yeah, So I have a term. I call it full
spectrum pedetry. Okay, So podietary, like I said, is truly
something that is partly primary care and partly surgical subspecialty.
In order to do it well, you can't just hung
on one area. In my opinion, in twenty percentury, we're
gonna have to be able to span the entire spectrum, right,
(28:00):
kind of like a dentist.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Right that you.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Know, they see you, and then they see something needs that,
you know, address, they either themselves or send you to
someone who doesn't. Same thing, right. So, all of our
providers are board certified, right, and they're doing all the
cutting edge surgeries, minimally evasive surgery as something that many
of us have publications on, for example, all the current
(28:25):
techniques in in you know, inkle replacement and all the again,
the big thing right now is minimally invasive procedures, which
we're all doing. And so our students are going to
be seeing that and doing that with the attendings. Literally
from day one of their third year, they're going to
see patients in the clinic. They're gonna be with that
attending the entire month and they're going to go in
(28:45):
and out of the hospital, ambiatory service center, nursing homes,
senior living center. It's again the system was almost built
for this continuation of care for patients that that really
is something that special for prodactors. It really helps us
as prodactors. You know, you probably don't know this, but
(29:05):
like we frequently do surgeries on people or you know,
do some sort of limbs sparing thing that they need,
and then they go off, you know, and they go
to some you know, nursing home and we can't see them. Right, well,
we can keep them on our nursing home and we
have that kind of facility here and so we can
go and we can personally round on them. And in
(29:26):
our own attending is our own providers, not just us
as deep Amle, the d O providers are there too,
so they're getting the whole team, the entirety of their care.
And in the womb Center failed to mention the wom Center, right,
you got the WOMD Center and doctor Lynn and his
team down there, you know, doing all kinds of cunning
edge grafts and things that nature hyper barracks that's literally
(29:49):
built almost for our benefit. I feel like, you know,
so I'm very I tell people I'm a lucky scout
of professions. None of you guys know it because somebody
thought about it here at leecom and.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
And almost kind of tailored it to Padia Tree.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
I don't think. I don't know it was a purposeful,
but it seems like that way to me, and I'm
definitely gonna, you know, leverage those assets to our students' benefit.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Well that's great. You know what is your vision for
for Leecome School of Padia Tree now is under your
leadership in the future, like going a couple of years.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Well, obviously first and foremost, so we're brand new, right,
so we're not fully accredited, although I guess I can't
say this now. I just got as I was walking
over here a letter from the cpmme. We just got
our pre accreditation. That's a big deal. So congratulations to
the whole team for that. But obviously accreditation is number one, right,
and that is something that thatcomes well known for right
(30:43):
for other schools, and we're following suit and we should
get fully accredited here in the next two years once
have our first graduating class. So that's step number one,
right with any school, as well as attracting qualified candidates
to the school. Right. So my goal though with those
two things is then within about five to ten years,
(31:03):
that people are swarming to try to get into the school, right, okay,
and grow the profession on top of it, right, not
just grow the school, but grow our faculty members. We have,
you know, believe it or not, I'm the oldest faculty member.
So we got a youthful group that's cutting edge training
if that's what we wanted, right. We wanted you know,
(31:24):
people that we're going to grow with the school, correct
and get them out and get them in the correct
you know, clinics and everything that they need to grow
their practices, which will grow our research, which will grow
the presence and the brand of Leecom Parietary, which is
already pretty strong by the way, because we've had our
regency program for a long time. But I want this
region right northwest Pennsylvania and quite frankly all of western
(31:47):
PA to think of foot and ankle you know, pedietry,
foot ankle surgery, all those things they think of Lee
Coom And you know, I don't see why I can't happen,
especially with our system.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
You know, and you touched on it earlier, but we
do have you know, there are different viewers. We have students,
we have potential students that are interested in possibly coming
to Leecom. What, in your opinion, what does Leecom offer
for them to come here? Why would they pick lee
Coom over other places?
Speaker 3 (32:19):
Well, first and foremost, as we already spoke about that
academic excellence. You know, you only get four years to
go to school, right, you might as well make it well.
If you fail, I guess you don't, but ideally you
get four years, you might as well make it the
best four possible years.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
Right.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
And additionally, we being that you know, a private school
able to maintain control costs and things like that, we have,
for most the most affordable pedetary school education anywhere you
do the math are tuition is the lowest. Additionally, the
cost of living here is very low, correct, right, compared
to other schools you know, Philadelphia, New York, Miami, Chicago.
(33:00):
Cost of living in those cities are you know, astronomically high.
So it makes sense to me, right, it's you know,
do cost benefit analysis. It makes a lot of sense
for a student that want to come to Lekom because
it's very affordable. Yet I still think it's high level,
if not the highest level quality.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Okay, we're gonna start wrapping this up. But what's something
you like to do that surprises people, like outside of
outside of pediatry.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
And yeah, well I didn't really talk about it, but
you know, I'm a naval officer as well, right, so
you know part of the the leadership thing, you know,
it's some honestly, honestly, for me, something is just about
giving back, you know, something I always wanted to do
and never had the opportunity to really do it the
way I wanted to when I was younger. It's kind
of a different story. But you know, I got a
(33:51):
commission eight years ago. So I'm a Medical Service Corps
officer and uh, you know I'm not here on the weekends.
That's usually what I'm doing. You know, I don't get
to any free weekends. To be honest with you, Like,
I go and I train. I'm actually what's what's called
a certified Tactle Combat Casualty Care instructor, So I go
on train people on like battlefield first DAID essentially like
(34:13):
for like combat medics and Corman what to do when
people get injured, shop whatever. I'm one of those trainers,
so it's pretty fun.
Speaker 5 (34:22):
You know.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
I get to go and do that. Most people don't
expect to but I used to do that. It's so
it's kind of fun for me to do. But yeah,
you know, I have a son and I like to
spend time with him. You know, I'm a kid hard too.
Like I said, I kind of came from nothing. So
now that I'm older and I you know, have a
career under my belt and I'm established a little bit more,
(34:43):
I like to spend I like to spend some of
that harder and money with my son. And you know,
I'm a big star Wars guy, Ghostbusters. You know, we
have a lot of fun doing uh you know, watching
those kinds of movies and whatnot. But I'm as a surgeon,
you know, I like to tinker and I'm kind of
a hobbyist and so we build props and stuff too.
Is a build a couple of different proton packs. It
(35:04):
was kind of fun. I got a couple of light
sabers and stuff like that too that I built. But
I collect them and so I got I got a big, a.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Big collection that's great. I'm a Star Wars guying myself,
so you know what it's been. So it's been really
entertaining sitting down with you. I'm sure if we wanted
to go over more with like your hobbies and everything,
especially the lightsabers and stuff, we'll go into. But finally,
let's let's go. Let's end this podcast with what would
(35:33):
you offer somebody that's definitely looking to come here, come
to lecom and to be come to pick a field
in the medical field. I know, your advice because you're
gonna say pedetry. If a student wanted to come here
and they wanted to pick out and they wanted to
talk to you about it, what advice would you give them?
Speaker 3 (35:51):
First and foremost, you get one life to live, right,
you know, I think we all kind of went through
the pandemic and everything and at our interesting experiences. I
don't know, I just was coming of age of that
at that point in time or what, but it really,
you know, I had that come to come to Jesus
moment during that time period and I got to reflect
and think about, you know, my life and whatnot. And
(36:12):
so I like to try and educate students basically, you know,
think about what you want in your career. You know,
I'll tell you all the good and bad about praetry.
You might not love that, you may just not have
any passion for it, and that's not going to be
for you, you know. Yeah, ask yourself, what do you
want in your career in medicine, you know, if you
want to help people, if you want to be able
(36:33):
to make a living, have kind of a nine to five,
you know, schedule, be able to run your own practice,
build your own practice, start your own practice from scratch, right,
which not a lot of specialties can do that anymore, right,
but you can't just by the nature of the way
we do business right, right, it might be for you,
(36:54):
you know, come and see what it is that I do.
Come and see the patients of a tree, Come and
see the pathology that we deal with, and then make
that decision for make that decision for yourself. And once
people see what we do, it almost always get excited
about it and say, you know, I could do that.
I want to do that, you know, because it's not
brain surgery, I mean, right, we don't do life saving surgery, right,
(37:15):
it's life it's quality of life saving surgery. People that
have painful problems, their quality of life is sometimes very poor.
In fact, actually that's the research shows, right, you got
ankle ar thrits, your quality of life is equivalent to
someone else who's on dialysis. That's a bad way of living.
So we help these people feel better about their life.
(37:37):
And but again it's not I don't usually bring bad
news to their loved ones, you know what I mean.
So it's not a bad way to live as a person.
And so you know, if if you know, you're just
simply into medicine to help people and you want to
do procedures and you kind of technically oriented in mind,
you have that mindset, I think it's something to think about.
Speaker 5 (37:59):
Right.
Speaker 3 (37:59):
It's it's a growth field and it's a very strong
field to get into. And I think we have one
of the best schools here for sure. You know, it's
obviously the newest school. We got the hungriest and one
of the most well trained faculty. And being here at
LEECOM with everyone that's just been, you know, so great.
So we're just going to continue to grow and.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Grow with them. Okay, Well, it's been a pleasure having
you here. Thank you everybody for watching leecom's Heroes and
Training podcasts. I'm again, I'm your host, Joseph Knight. Make
sure you like, subscribe, and follow on our channels. We
are on Instagram, YouTube and on Facebook. And also if
you haven't noticed, we do have a shop, so you
(38:37):
can always order from our shop. All the links will
be provided here again for myself the Doctor Eric. Thank
you all and have a great time.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
Thank you.
You're listening to lee KOM presents Heroes in Training. The
Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, also known as lee COOM,
has been providing training to heroes all across the globe
since nineteen ninety three. This podcast gives you an insider
look at the stories of triumph and hope from both
(00:22):
former students and faculty, helping you decide if lee COOM
is the right choice for your higher education. Let's start
the show.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Welcome everybody too, Leecom's Heroes in Training. I am your host,
Joseph nine, and I am with They're a friend of
mine who works over em Peddietary. Mister, should I say
doctor Dwayne Eric, correct?
Speaker 3 (00:49):
Yes, that's correct.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Well, great, welcome to the podcast. Apreciate it. You know what,
before we go into anything, please tell everybody your proper title,
because I wouldn't know how to how to say it all,
but go ahead. Sure.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
I'm doctor Dwyer Junior. I'm the clinical Professor and Dean
of the School of Pediatric Medicine here at the Lake
Erie College of Ostia Pathley Medicine.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
All right, and how long have you been in leecommon?
Speaker 3 (01:12):
So I've been in leecomm for about one hundred days now.
I've spent the last twenty years of my life in
northeast Ohio and Cleveland's where I went to school and
did my training and started a building a name for
myself professionally speaking. This past January, I was recruited over
to be the dean here at Lee Coomm and I
moved at the beginning of the year. And I've been represents.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Okay, great, great to have you. You gets to put
up with me a lot, folks, So let's let's go.
Let's start off with some basics, like can you tell
me a little bit? Where were you born? Where you've raised?
Speaker 3 (01:45):
Yeah, so you know, I was born and raised in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Okay,
so I'm an eight one four kid, just like everyone
from around here. But I tell everyone I was born
and raised in Pennsylvania, but I kind of grew up
as an adult in Cleveland, right, Okay, So when, like
I said, when I moved to Cleveland, I thought I
was gonna be there for four years, do my school,
and come back. You know, I always wanted to come
(02:06):
back home, but for one one reason or another, the
profession kind of kept me in Cleveland, and I just
kind of, you know, grew the professional ranks there and
you know, when the timing was right, I got that
opportunity to come back here. So I'm very very happy
to come back. But yeah, I was. I was born
here in Pa. Laurel Highland's kid. You know, everything uphill,
(02:26):
you know, coal mining, railroad industry kind of place is
where I grew up. Yep. And the big thing for
me was was football. So football is real big in Pennsylvania.
It was real big for me back home, and it
was one of the things really that kind of got
me into medicine ultimately.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
But that's who I am, right, and that's gonna be
my next question too, What what led you to take
medicine as a profession.
Speaker 3 (02:49):
So it's like I said, you know, I was you know,
I love football growing up, right, And I was a
pretty smart kid. You know. I got good grades and
honestly didn't have to really try too hard to get
good grades in school. But I was a kind of
a short stocky. I'm not out of shape, but it
wasn't the most athletic kid by any means. But I
looked up to all the kids that played football, and
(03:10):
I wanted to be like the guys that played Friday
night lights, you know. And so from a very early
on time period in my life, I was about eight
nine ten, I knew that I was never going to
be as big or fast, as strong as everybody else,
but if I used my brain, I could kind of
make myself that way. So I literally would go to
sheets It's convenience stores started out tuna, and I would
(03:31):
pick up the men's health magazines and I would flip
through and I would read and learn about like weightlifting
and running and things like that. And that just got
me really interested in the human body as a machine.
And you know, obviously playing sports you get injuries and
things like that too, So I just had a real
good appreciation for the doctors and athletic trainers and everybody
that took care of us. And so, you know, I
(03:53):
kind of dedicated my life as a you know, you know,
pre teen and teenager to learn learning how to make
myself bigger, faster, stronger, which led to an appreciation of
like exercise science and exercise physiology. And I really thought
that the interesting the human body was really interesting. Additionally,
like I said, I had lots of doctors and whatnot
(04:14):
that I looked up look up to as a kid,
and you know where I grew up, you know, we
didn't really have a whole lot of resources, and you know,
I didn't really have much of a way out of
the city, so to speak. And so I kind of realized, like,
you know, I like this. I like the human body.
I have an appreciation for it. You know, I have
half a brain in my head. I think I can
make this work if I work hard, Like I could
(04:35):
become a doctor too someday. And so from a very
early age, probably fourteen, I knew that I wanted to
be a doctor of some sorts, you know, and that
led me to go to where I went this undergrad
which is junior out of college. I specifically picked junior
out of because of their prehealth record, like they both
like one hundred percent place right in the medical schools
and things like that. Interestingly enough, my experience, I said
(05:00):
juniata I was quite opposite that it was when I
was in high school. So in high school I just
showed up. I got good grades, worked really hard at football,
and was very successful on all endeavage. Because I worked
harder stuff, I wasn't good at but kind of got
by with very mental effort. In the academic side of things.
Juniorata was the opposite. I got humbled real quick at Juniata.
(05:21):
In the academic sector. It was very hard and just
showing up was not enough to get by. Now, my
work ethic that I'd garnered over the years in football
and the high school that I went to was very
prestigious school a lot led me to like pretty quick
success in the football field, and I was getting all
these like you know, you know, recognition awards, things like
(05:45):
that I was one of the top rushers in the
country and things, and getting a lot of success. But
in my sophomore year, I got my letter for my
health profession's advisor that said, you know that I was
unlikely for me to make it into his career in medicine.
I should consider i'll turn of options. I didn't have
any alternative options. So I sat down with her and said, look,
(06:05):
I want to make up you know, let me even
make another plan here, and so we did. I kind
of figured out what I was doing right and what
I was doing wrong, reprioritized my time, and got much
better grades in my second third year. Along that course, though,
you know, she knew that I was interested in medicine,
specifically in bone and joint like at that point, I
(06:28):
kind of knew I want to do orthopedic type stuff,
bone and joint surgeries of interest of mine. I knew
how surgeons had, like their lifestyle, what that was like,
and she, you know, recommended I actually looked into podiet
you believe it or not. Before that, I didn't know
anything about the profession. I knew what it was like,
I knew what part of the body they treated, but
I didn't know that it was a separate school system
(06:49):
and a separate educational track, right. She educated me on that,
and I've followed up and took her advice, you know,
looked into it, did shadowing, visit at schools, that kind
of thing, and ultimately fell in love with the profession
and then applied and then the rest is kind of history.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Well, and that's one of the cool things here, folks.
It's nobody really understands that there's specialties like pedietry, and
for me, who's never been in the medical field to
actually understand that there is different things that you know,
we always think the doctor knows it all, like it's
all in one thing. So that's kind of cool to
know that, you know, you picked out what you felt
(07:29):
like could work for you and you went right into
that setting. So that's crazy. You know, your journey from
being a practitioner now you're the leader, you're the dean
of p dietary. You know, can you walk us through
that little path that helped you get to become the
dean of here in lecom?
Speaker 3 (07:48):
Yeah? You know, the interesting thing is a very linear path.
Although it wasn't my goal necessarily, you know, when I
got into pediatry, you know, almost twenty years ago, it
wasn't a goal of mine to become the deans. Sometime
I did recognize early on, like you can kind of
tell as a student who really knows what you're talking
about and who doesn't. And you know, that kind of
(08:11):
interested me, you know, as a student, and I kind
of always told myself, I'm never going to be the
person that doesn't know what they're talking about, right, you know, no,
what we like you mentioned, we don't all know it.
We don't know everything. In medicine. It's a huge body
of knowledge. That's why we have specializations, right, But I
knew that I could focus on my area of expertise
(08:32):
and become truly proficient and if not the best at it,
and feel very confident in talking to people and anything
that comes in the door that's within my air of expertise,
I feel pretty confident that I have a good plan
to help that patient out. And so from an early age,
I just focused on academic excellence. I mean even as
a second year student going into third year clinical uortations.
(08:52):
As a student, I wanted to make sure that I
set myself apart from all my other classmates. So silly
things like logging, Like as a dent, you gotta log
your patients, and some people just kind of take that
as take that for granted. It's just a check in
the box. You know, no one's watching. Maybe that's true.
I paid attention. I wanted to have the most logs
of anybody. I wanted to have like a thousand logs
(09:14):
in my first year. That same thing for residency training, Right,
you do surgeries and stuff, you gotta log them, and
believe it or not, sometimes they get missed or people
forget about them. I was always like super excited to
log my cases, just because I wanted to make sure
that I was doing everything possible to set myself up for,
you know, that next level of success. And so it
(09:35):
was just a thought process like I'm gonna do everything
possible here to make sure like I was always seeing
in class. Now Here at Koon we have a tennis
policy and whatnot. Other schools they don't have that. Believe
it or not, my class superlative at I went to
ken State, my class superlative was most likely to be
seen in class because I was always sitting in the
front row asking questions and whatnot. I just wanted to
(09:58):
do well for the patients and I wanted to you
set myself apart as someone who knew what they were doing.
It wasn't a goal to be the dean per se.
It just led to the next step for me, which
was getting one of the more prestigious regency programs in Cleveland,
and that was at Saint Business Charity Medical Center in
Case Western Reserve University. Historically, in our profession, it was
one of the top programs. So getting it was a
(10:19):
real honor. And when you're there, you work a lot, right,
you work your tail off, and you build that resiliency right,
and you learn about yourself, You learn about what your
strengths and weaknesses really are and in that case, failing
a lot and learning from that was building that resilience
that I think that leads to being a good leader.
(10:39):
You know, you can't be a leader if you're not
understanding what goes on in the trenches. Corre and I've
failed a lot yourself, you know, And so we did.
We weren't afraid to fail. We took a lot of
chance on things. We learned a lot in that program
and that led me then to the next step, which
was a very busy surgical practice in northeast Ohio. It
(11:00):
provided me a lot of opportunities see patients and deals
really complicated pathology and get my numbers up for board certification.
And it's it's something that's really hard on our profession
to get surgical board certification. Not everybody gets it, and
fortunately here Leek we got a lot of providers that
have it. So we got a good group of good
group of people. But it was really important for me
to get that at that point. And when I did that,
(11:24):
that opened up a bunch of more doors because all
of a sudden, now you know, schools and things were
you know, looking to me for my expertise which led
me into academia. And I was only thirty years old
when I started in academia, so you know, it's still
pretty young. I mean there are many students that are
even older than me. I think we even have maybe
(11:44):
one student that's still older than me, which is kind
of interesting. But you know, my I guess my experience
in that process has just been one that I'm with
you in the process. I'm not someone behind the desk
or somewhere off and eat or you know, I'm actually
one of you. And you know that that leadership track,
(12:04):
you know, this is something that I learned from THEOS.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Yeah, that's great. You know. So from that moment to
coming to Lecon and being offered the position of dean,
how did that transpire? How did it's just something that
you inspired that that was your next step to do well?
Speaker 3 (12:23):
Like I said, it wasn't necessarily the next step that
I was looking for. I mean, yes, I was always
looking to move up right, you know, I kind of
maximized my growth where I was in Cleveland. You know,
at that time, there wasn't really anywhere for me to
go up from there. And again, although it wasn't that
I was looking to be a dean necessarily, I definitely
(12:44):
was looking to lead, you know, I wanted my own
group of people to lead, and so that opportunity came
about via you know, recruiting efforts, and it was very
interesting to me. And it was a little bit of
a process. You know, that's kind of a big jump
from from fact to administration and a move that wasn't
that far remove, but still a move and whatnot. And
(13:05):
so it took a little bit of time to get
it figured out. But those pretty simple process once people
the trigger, I mean, I was here in a heartbeat,
and you know, they made it very easy for me
to be able to move here and get planted so
I could get the work.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
So for you viewers out there, when I first saw
him walk in, I thought he was a student. Next
thing I know he was the deans, I'm like wow.
For viewers who are watching this, podcasts are still exploring,
you know, the healthcare system, like looking for different positions
and careers. Why would they be why would they be
interesting in pedietary? Why should they choose p dietary?
Speaker 4 (13:42):
So so pedietry first off, right, we as human beings,
right for most of us, that are a normal, able
body to walk right, and take our fee for granted
most of the time.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Right.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
The process of evolution or creation or whatever we want
to believe in is giving us these two feet and
these extremities to walk around the earth. It's the only
part of the body that's in constant communication with the earth. Right.
So if you ever had a foot problem, even as
simple as like an ingrown nail, it's really bothers today.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Right.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
So being a pediatrist is actually you get to see
immediate return on your investment. Like when when someone comes
in the door, I don't have to give them some
sort of bad news. It may take months of unraveling.
I can say, oh, you have an ingrown nail. I
can immediately cut that out and you'll feel instantly better.
And that's a good feeling to be able to give
(14:31):
to someone.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
Right.
Speaker 3 (14:32):
So to see the you know, the fruits of your
labor immediately in front of you is just gives you
as a person a lot of positive feedback to say, oh,
this is fun, I want to do this again, you know,
so that like that burnout and that you know, the
drudgery of medicine that some professions suffer with, you know,
I'm not saying we don't have any you know, we
(14:53):
self the chart and everything too, you know, but it's
a lot of fun. Right So the field itself is
technically very challenge and fun. Additionally, we have, you know,
a very we have an aging population right as a
whole our country continues to get older. It also continues
to get sicker with diabetes, kidney disease, other medical comorbidities
(15:16):
that lead to lower extremity problems. So there's a huge
need for our profession, for our area of expertise right now. Okay,
it's at an all time high. Ironically, though, we actually
have a dip in applicants store schools because over the
last twenty years or so, other areas of medicine, osteopathic, allopathic,
(15:36):
you know, pa, all these other schools have started opening up.
And that being that we're such a small community, right
there's only eighteen thousand practicing pediatrists. Most people don't know
about the profession, so they don't apply. They get sucked
into these other schools, and so we're actually getting a
decrease in applicants right now. So if you're a person
listening that's interested in making a living right in the
(15:59):
profession in medicine period, you're like buying at the dip
right now. And if it was like the stock market, right, Okay,
we got a bunch of pediectors that are graduating or
I'm sorry, they're retiring, they're not gonna be able to
sell the practices anybody, right, If there's nobody graduating who
they can sell to correct, the job opportunities are an
all time high. They would negotiate salaries. We're surgeons, right,
(16:20):
so you can be a proceduralist and help people by
doing things to them either in the office the operating room.
And we have this very broad profession that allows you
to practice kind of in a primary care setting but
also surgical subspecialty setting. Okay, okay, So it's just a
very rewarding career that you can build, you know, your
(16:41):
skill set around and you can build a following around
and find a purpose in life and ultimately, you know,
provide for your family.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
Well that's very interesting. Now, what are the biggest misconceptions
you find that people ask questions about the dietary?
Speaker 3 (16:59):
So I always tell people the heart. The hardest part
about being a pediatrist is telling people you're a pediatrest.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Right.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
It's a joke, right, but it's true. You people just
don't know what it is that we do. They don't
know what our level of training is. They don't know,
you know, are we doctors or not? Or what are we?
So I think the biggest misconception is that we're not
some sort of physician. We are, right. We we go
to a four year graduate medical education system very similar
(17:28):
to osteopathic allopathic pathway or kind of like dentistry too. Right,
we're kind of like a hybrid between the dentistry curate
curriculum and osteopathic curriculum. Okay, we you know it's not
never do just two feet walk into my office. It's
a person with foot problems that walks in, right, So
we have to understand the whole body as well, right,
(17:49):
the old saying, you know, the foot bones connected to
the leg bone, the leg bones connected to the you know,
there's some truth to that, right. So the foundation for
our patients, right, especially this holistic type of setting that
we are here at Lee coomp. You know, it kind
of starts from the ground up, and so you know,
we are part of like part of the mainstream healthcare system.
(18:10):
I just think that people don't realize that are the
three letters after our last name, what that means exactly right,
So it's doctor of potetric Medicine. I'm a DPM. It's
it's difficult for people to conceptualize anything other than MD
or d O right, right. But but we're also out there,
you just like the dentist or DDS or d M
(18:30):
D right, and they're they're well respected areas of expertise.
So wait, but I think that's the biggest misconception is
that people just don't know what our level of training is.
Speaker 5 (18:44):
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a healthcare industry biomedical ethicist. Ensuring the health of communities
through patient centered care is fundamental to our quality of life.
That is why Leecom, an industry leader and whole person
Wellness Education, offers an innovative and fully accredited Master of
Science and Biomedical Ethics degree program through LECOM School of
(19:07):
Health Services Administration. Students are prepared to help resolve complex
ethical challenges and advise healthcare industry leaders through an online
learning platform which allows even the busiest professionals to work
full time while completing their master's degree. Email Shsa at
lecom dot edu to begin your journey of discovery. That's
(19:30):
sh SA at Lecom dot ed U. At lecom, we
know wellness and are teaching the ethics of healthcare. This
message is brought to you by Lecom, a nonprofit organization.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Right And I think even for me, you know, until
we started discussing and then learning different medical fields, I
did not know there was like so many intricacies to it,
like different like you say, specialties, different training for everybody.
I always think that it's always just one doctor. You
never think of like oh he you know, he just
he deals in pedietary. You didn't have to really go
(20:06):
to school, like yeah, like another doctor. So you know,
that's one of the things that that really surprises being
sitting here and you going over everything it is. It's
like educating meet folks on learning what you're doing and
your appreciation for and you have a very strong appreciation
for what you're doing. Speaking of that, LEECOM has a
(20:28):
strong reputation, particularly in the roots of orthopedic medicine. You know,
how does the school of p dietry with Leecom's broad
whole person you know, healthcare philosophy work with you.
Speaker 3 (20:44):
Well, like I said, you know, the foot is the
foundation of the human being, that that whoever that person is,
that is walking into your door. And that's the root
of osteopathic medicine, I think, is thinking about the functional
aspects of like form follows function, right, and the body
can heal itself, right, and so thinking of it from
a purely biomechanical perspective, like, we fit directly into that, right,
(21:08):
but with our students specifically right that they are side
by side with the austroopathics students taking most of the
same classes in the first couple of years. Of course,
we do have an emphasis in lower extremity anatomy, and
we have some uh you know, some some special special
classes on the operating room and how to be kind
of a surgeon because we are a procedure lists right, right,
(21:30):
And we also have a very specific pedietry course or too, right,
so potiatric medicine, biomechanics and surgery. But but all in all,
you know, it's very integrated, you know, into the system
that's already built, built in place here at LECOM and
the expectations of our students are the same, right, it's
(21:52):
you know, they're taking again, same biochemistry, same physiology, same
general anatomy, pharmacology, all that kind of thing, and they're
they're being you know, evaluated the same as any other
physician and training you don't.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
I'm going to jump around because I do have some questions.
I took the time to like kind of study and
ask some questions here, I'm going to jump questions around.
So what aspects of being a dean are you excited about?
Is it the hands on being with students, working with them.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Yeah, well you can do that as a faculty member.
So so as a faculty member, that's the person that's
really the hands on person. Quite frankly, this is my
opportunity to actually take command and lead an entire school, right,
So that's what I'm mostly interested in, right is being
able to set the standard for what I expect the
faculty to do and see them grow as well as
the students. I Mean, sometimes, you know, in medicine thing,
(22:47):
especially in higher education, things can be you know, kind
of political or whatever. I'm not afraid to stand up
for what I believe in, you know, and I think
that's something that kind of le calm has always been
that way, you know, And so I think I've hit
that fit that mold as well to leave from the front,
and so being a dean. There's only eleven schools in
(23:07):
the country by the way, right, so I'm really one
of eleven. It's a big deal in my profession. It
might not be as big of a deal to everyone
here because you've been doing it so well for you know,
thirty five years, but for our profession this is a
huge deal. Everybody wants to know what I'm up to.
Everyone wants to know what we're doing here at lecome,
and so to have that opportunity is the biggest, you know,
(23:27):
responsibility anybody in our profession can have because everyone's looking
at us to be doing the right thing.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Right.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
So I've been kind of, you know, looking at it
from the sidelines as a faculty member to some extent.
Right now I get to be the bus driver, you know,
And so that's one I'm mostly looking forward to, is
being able to see truly how far can we take
things here with the new school and with our students.
And it's been very i mean literally the last hundred days.
(23:57):
I was kind of joking with doctor Silvia said, I
don't remember in my life before coming here, because I've
done so much here in like one hundred days that
I have done the last ten years, not that I
don't remember it, but it's been a while. It's not
really overwhelming, just a lot of good stuff. It's a
lot to do.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
So yeah, you know what, I kind of feel the
same way when I first got here, So it was
I wouldn't say overwhelming. It's been no joy working here.
And now thanks to you know, Lee Kom's hero and
podcast train you know, Heroes in Training podcasts, we get
the opportunity a should I say, you get the opportunity
to really talk about, you know, promote pedietry. That again,
(24:38):
it's not really too outsiders don't really know about that.
So you know Leecom school of you know p diietry
is always just setting high standards. What are the two
specific things lee Coom does differently from other schools.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
Well, first and foremost, I get the leverage of strength
that Leecoon has already put in place, right, that that
high level of you know, systems based clinical sciences right
and simultaneously completing our our productory specific coursework. Okay, so
you know, and not to name names, or anything. But
(25:17):
but but I know what everybody else is doing, and
and here at LECOM, right, we're able to get all
our didactic stuff done in those first two years, right,
and make sure that we appropriately assess them anyway that
they are ready to go so that they get into
the third year, that they are nothing but clinical training
once they take boards and get into the third year. Right,
(25:37):
And that's where we are right now. Our students are
getting ready to take boards and proceed a third year.
And that is not that way with all the other schools, Okay,
it's you know, just isn't okay. So we have something
very unique here where we're part of the system.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Right.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
The the the top level physicians and administrators here respect
us a lot. They want us to be part of
the health system as legit partners are not just some
sort of adjunctive thing. And so our students are the
same way, right. Their expectations of students, My students are
the same as ostopathic students, and they're side by side
in the clinics, you know, and with us one on one, right,
(26:18):
we have literally one on one, you know, doctor to
student teaching going along in the clinic. We have around
health system right, it's a good health system. I was
just meeting with doctor Hanson last week and I kind
of joked when she showed me around the hospital system, said,
did you build this for me?
Speaker 2 (26:38):
Like?
Speaker 3 (26:38):
I feel like this was set up for pediatry to
do really well. You know, we kind of joked about it.
I don't know if that's true, and I don't think so.
I think it's just a coincidence, but it's true. Right,
we have a system in place here now, new er
cath lab, Amatory service Center, all these things are things
that pediatrits use a lot of. So that's perfect for
(26:59):
me and our students because we're gonna get literally five
minutes down the road right direct access to you know,
cutting edge technologies that as real patients, not a simulation.
This is the real deal, and I don't think other
schools can offer that.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
You know, when we're gonna go into technologies, you just
bring that up, you know what kind of you just
pretty much described all the different the equipment that you
see over there at the new hospital. With that, you know,
can you give me an idea, like with the podietry,
what students are able to get into and help out
(27:35):
with that prepares them for modern you know, medicine today.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Yeah, So I have a term. I call it full
spectrum pedetry. Okay, So podietary, like I said, is truly
something that is partly primary care and partly surgical subspecialty.
In order to do it well, you can't just hung
on one area. In my opinion, in twenty percentury, we're
gonna have to be able to span the entire spectrum, right,
(28:00):
kind of like a dentist.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Right that you.
Speaker 3 (28:02):
Know, they see you, and then they see something needs that,
you know, address, they either themselves or send you to
someone who doesn't. Same thing, right. So, all of our
providers are board certified, right, and they're doing all the
cutting edge surgeries, minimally evasive surgery as something that many
of us have publications on, for example, all the current
(28:25):
techniques in in you know, inkle replacement and all the again,
the big thing right now is minimally invasive procedures, which
we're all doing. And so our students are going to
be seeing that and doing that with the attendings. Literally
from day one of their third year, they're going to
see patients in the clinic. They're gonna be with that
attending the entire month and they're going to go in
(28:45):
and out of the hospital, ambiatory service center, nursing homes,
senior living center. It's again the system was almost built
for this continuation of care for patients that that really
is something that special for prodactors. It really helps us
as prodactors. You know, you probably don't know this, but
(29:05):
like we frequently do surgeries on people or you know,
do some sort of limbs sparing thing that they need,
and then they go off, you know, and they go
to some you know, nursing home and we can't see them. Right, well,
we can keep them on our nursing home and we
have that kind of facility here and so we can
go and we can personally round on them. And in
(29:26):
our own attending is our own providers, not just us
as deep Amle, the d O providers are there too,
so they're getting the whole team, the entirety of their care.
And in the womb Center failed to mention the wom Center, right,
you got the WOMD Center and doctor Lynn and his
team down there, you know, doing all kinds of cunning
edge grafts and things that nature hyper barracks that's literally
(29:49):
built almost for our benefit. I feel like, you know,
so I'm very I tell people I'm a lucky scout
of professions. None of you guys know it because somebody
thought about it here at leecom and.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
And almost kind of tailored it to Padia Tree.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
I don't think. I don't know it was a purposeful,
but it seems like that way to me, and I'm
definitely gonna, you know, leverage those assets to our students' benefit.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Well that's great. You know what is your vision for
for Leecome School of Padia Tree now is under your
leadership in the future, like going a couple of years.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
Well, obviously first and foremost, so we're brand new, right,
so we're not fully accredited, although I guess I can't
say this now. I just got as I was walking
over here a letter from the cpmme. We just got
our pre accreditation. That's a big deal. So congratulations to
the whole team for that. But obviously accreditation is number one, right,
and that is something that thatcomes well known for right
(30:43):
for other schools, and we're following suit and we should
get fully accredited here in the next two years once
have our first graduating class. So that's step number one,
right with any school, as well as attracting qualified candidates
to the school. Right. So my goal though with those
two things is then within about five to ten years,
(31:03):
that people are swarming to try to get into the school, right, okay,
and grow the profession on top of it, right, not
just grow the school, but grow our faculty members. We have,
you know, believe it or not, I'm the oldest faculty member.
So we got a youthful group that's cutting edge training
if that's what we wanted, right. We wanted you know,
(31:24):
people that we're going to grow with the school, correct
and get them out and get them in the correct
you know, clinics and everything that they need to grow
their practices, which will grow our research, which will grow
the presence and the brand of Leecom Parietary, which is
already pretty strong by the way, because we've had our
regency program for a long time. But I want this
region right northwest Pennsylvania and quite frankly all of western
(31:47):
PA to think of foot and ankle you know, pedietry,
foot ankle surgery, all those things they think of Lee
Coom And you know, I don't see why I can't happen,
especially with our system.
Speaker 2 (31:58):
You know, and you touched on it earlier, but we
do have you know, there are different viewers. We have students,
we have potential students that are interested in possibly coming
to Leecom. What, in your opinion, what does Leecom offer
for them to come here? Why would they pick lee
Coom over other places?
Speaker 3 (32:19):
Well, first and foremost, as we already spoke about that
academic excellence. You know, you only get four years to
go to school, right, you might as well make it well.
If you fail, I guess you don't, but ideally you
get four years, you might as well make it the
best four possible years.
Speaker 1 (32:33):
Right.
Speaker 3 (32:35):
And additionally, we being that you know, a private school
able to maintain control costs and things like that, we have,
for most the most affordable pedetary school education anywhere you
do the math are tuition is the lowest. Additionally, the
cost of living here is very low, correct, right, compared
to other schools you know, Philadelphia, New York, Miami, Chicago.
(33:00):
Cost of living in those cities are you know, astronomically high.
So it makes sense to me, right, it's you know,
do cost benefit analysis. It makes a lot of sense
for a student that want to come to Lekom because
it's very affordable. Yet I still think it's high level,
if not the highest level quality.
Speaker 2 (33:19):
Okay, we're gonna start wrapping this up. But what's something
you like to do that surprises people, like outside of
outside of pediatry.
Speaker 3 (33:29):
And yeah, well I didn't really talk about it, but
you know, I'm a naval officer as well, right, so
you know part of the the leadership thing, you know,
it's some honestly, honestly, for me, something is just about
giving back, you know, something I always wanted to do
and never had the opportunity to really do it the
way I wanted to when I was younger. It's kind
of a different story. But you know, I got a
(33:51):
commission eight years ago. So I'm a Medical Service Corps
officer and uh, you know I'm not here on the weekends.
That's usually what I'm doing. You know, I don't get
to any free weekends. To be honest with you, Like,
I go and I train. I'm actually what's what's called
a certified Tactle Combat Casualty Care instructor, So I go
on train people on like battlefield first DAID essentially like
(34:13):
for like combat medics and Corman what to do when
people get injured, shop whatever. I'm one of those trainers,
so it's pretty fun.
Speaker 5 (34:22):
You know.
Speaker 3 (34:22):
I get to go and do that. Most people don't
expect to but I used to do that. It's so
it's kind of fun for me to do. But yeah,
you know, I have a son and I like to
spend time with him. You know, I'm a kid hard too.
Like I said, I kind of came from nothing. So
now that I'm older and I you know, have a
career under my belt and I'm established a little bit more,
(34:43):
I like to spend I like to spend some of
that harder and money with my son. And you know,
I'm a big star Wars guy, Ghostbusters. You know, we
have a lot of fun doing uh you know, watching
those kinds of movies and whatnot. But I'm as a surgeon,
you know, I like to tinker and I'm kind of
a hobbyist and so we build props and stuff too.
Is a build a couple of different proton packs. It
(35:04):
was kind of fun. I got a couple of light
sabers and stuff like that too that I built. But
I collect them and so I got I got a big, a.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
Big collection that's great. I'm a Star Wars guying myself,
so you know what it's been. So it's been really
entertaining sitting down with you. I'm sure if we wanted
to go over more with like your hobbies and everything,
especially the lightsabers and stuff, we'll go into. But finally,
let's let's go. Let's end this podcast with what would
(35:33):
you offer somebody that's definitely looking to come here, come
to lecom and to be come to pick a field
in the medical field. I know, your advice because you're
gonna say pedetry. If a student wanted to come here
and they wanted to pick out and they wanted to
talk to you about it, what advice would you give them?
Speaker 3 (35:51):
First and foremost, you get one life to live, right,
you know, I think we all kind of went through
the pandemic and everything and at our interesting experiences. I
don't know, I just was coming of age of that
at that point in time or what, but it really,
you know, I had that come to come to Jesus
moment during that time period and I got to reflect
and think about, you know, my life and whatnot. And
(36:12):
so I like to try and educate students basically, you know,
think about what you want in your career. You know,
I'll tell you all the good and bad about praetry.
You might not love that, you may just not have
any passion for it, and that's not going to be
for you, you know. Yeah, ask yourself, what do you
want in your career in medicine, you know, if you
want to help people, if you want to be able
(36:33):
to make a living, have kind of a nine to five,
you know, schedule, be able to run your own practice,
build your own practice, start your own practice from scratch, right,
which not a lot of specialties can do that anymore, right,
but you can't just by the nature of the way
we do business right, right, it might be for you,
(36:54):
you know, come and see what it is that I do.
Come and see the patients of a tree, Come and
see the pathology that we deal with, and then make
that decision for make that decision for yourself. And once
people see what we do, it almost always get excited
about it and say, you know, I could do that.
I want to do that, you know, because it's not
brain surgery, I mean, right, we don't do life saving surgery, right,
(37:15):
it's life it's quality of life saving surgery. People that
have painful problems, their quality of life is sometimes very poor.
In fact, actually that's the research shows, right, you got
ankle ar thrits, your quality of life is equivalent to
someone else who's on dialysis. That's a bad way of living.
So we help these people feel better about their life.
(37:37):
And but again it's not I don't usually bring bad
news to their loved ones, you know what I mean.
So it's not a bad way to live as a person.
And so you know, if if you know, you're just
simply into medicine to help people and you want to
do procedures and you kind of technically oriented in mind,
you have that mindset, I think it's something to think about.
Speaker 5 (37:59):
Right.
Speaker 3 (37:59):
It's it's a growth field and it's a very strong
field to get into. And I think we have one
of the best schools here for sure. You know, it's
obviously the newest school. We got the hungriest and one
of the most well trained faculty. And being here at
LEECOM with everyone that's just been, you know, so great.
So we're just going to continue to grow and.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Grow with them. Okay, Well, it's been a pleasure having
you here. Thank you everybody for watching leecom's Heroes and
Training podcasts. I'm again, I'm your host, Joseph Knight. Make
sure you like, subscribe, and follow on our channels. We
are on Instagram, YouTube and on Facebook. And also if
you haven't noticed, we do have a shop, so you
(38:37):
can always order from our shop. All the links will
be provided here again for myself the Doctor Eric. Thank
you all and have a great time.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
Thank you.
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