Kenneth Lossing Installed as President of AAO

On March 22, 2014 at the American Academy of Osteopathy’s  Convocation in Colorado Springs, CO, Kenneth J. Lossing, D.O. was installed as AAO president for 2014-2015. The following was his Inaugural Address.

Without the loving support of my wife Margret, I wouldn’t be able to take on this job of president. Along with supporting me, she also tells me when I am wrong, which is more often that I care to admit. Together, we are better than each is alone. We make a team.

Today, I would like to address you as my extended family, the Osteopathic family. We have family that is by birth, and also family by association. The osteopathic family is one of those things that you can’t explain, it just is. You feel this the first time you come to convocation as a student. There is a certain something that we share. I hope and pray that the family continues and grows.

Today we are at a crossroads. Maybe we have always been at a crossroads, I don’t know. The crossroads that we are at today is between the past and the future. The past is behind us and the future is in front of us. We can learn both from our prior failures and successes. That which we see as the problems and opportunities of yesterday and today, will shape how we think and feel. This then helps us decide how we want to form the future. If we think well enough, we can help to create what the future is.

About 100 years ago, an osteopathic physician by the name of FP Millard DO wrote a book called this “Practical Visions”. It wasn’t about daydreaming. It was about seeing the things around you and seeing where there was a need or deficiency.  Then figuring out what you could do about that.

I see an example of practical vision in my ordinary life very often. We live just north of San Francisco, and have to drive across the golden gate bridge to go to the city or the airport. Locals take it as normal to drive across the bridge. Hardly anyone remembers that San Francisco existed for nearly 100 years before there was a bridge. Someone had the thought that the ferry system was not too practical, and to build a bridge would be a good idea. Somehow, that idea was manifested. Today, people come from around the world to see and walk across that bridge.

Another example was in 1962, president John F. Kennedy said that we needed to enter the space race. By putting a man on the moon we would then have the technology to be able to have communication satellites around the earth, and revolutionize world communication. Now, it is so. That was practical vision.

The last example I would like to give is in 1963 Martin Luther king had a dream. I am going to paraphrase it and shorten it, as the dream took a while to explain. Basically he said that one day it would be possible for a white person and a black person to walk down the street, hand in hand, and no one would think anything unusual of it. At the time, that was impossible. Now, it is so.

I would also like to relate something that is interesting. A few months ago I was in the Atlanta airport on the way to an AOA meeting. I was late, so I was running.  I passed by a glass case, which made me stop. In that glass case was an old jacket. Near the case was a photograph of Martin Luther King in the white house with president Lyndon Banes Johnson. The jacket in the case was the one MLK had worn on that day. The interesting thing about it was that it was thread bare, worn and frayed. Now, if I were going to meet the president, I would have dressed in my finest. It appears that his finest was threadbare, he had no money to buy a new suit. Yet, he had the tenacity to go to the white house and speak his mind. It changed the face of America.

So, what is our vision? Is it possible that an individual or group can make a difference? I think so, we can.

I was talking last night with Dr. Ed Stiles, he was at the second convocation, about 1971 or 1972. It was here at the Broadmoor, there were 35 doctors, average age about 70 years old, and no students. Students were not allowed. The first students were allowed about 3 years later. Gary Ostrow and Alex Nicholas were allowed, and Gary was asked to say something. Gary got up and said, “they are not teaching us enough Osteopathy in Des Moines and the program is terrible”, and passed the hat for collections to raise money.  That was a man with practical vision. The next year the dean of that school came to the Convocation and hired a new faculty. That’s practical vision, seeing a need and acting.

Today there are around 1,450 doctors, students and guests at our meeting. Who would have guessed it? What will the future bring?

What is it that we see, what are the problems, what is it that we would like? I can tell you that after 17 years in practice, I see that we are still the best-kept secret in American medicine, for no particularly good reason. The dichotomy of that is we are the best-trained physicians in America, and trained to deal with the most common medical problems. 50% of family practice visits are form musculoskeletal pain. The standard of medical care is NSAIDS as first line treatment. The problem is that it lands 150,000-180,000 people a year in the hospital due to the iatrogenic effects. Of those, about 1/3 of that number die.

Lets be clear about this. The same conditions can be treated with OMM. You can treat something with osteopathic manipulative medicine, which has no record of hospitalization or death in over 120 years, although there might be some cases that are not reported. So, which form of treatment would you prefer? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this out. So, as a physician we should “First do no harm”. Osteopathic manipulative medicine should be the first line treatment, not the end of the line treatment.

So, now we know what the problem is, and what the vision is, but what is the practical part? The practical part is that your leadership has put together a new strategic plan. The strategic plan says that by the year 2025, ½ of the US population should know about OMM and utilize it.

One of the first steps is the AAO leadership is drafting a resolution to the AOA House of Delegates for this summer.  It basically says that since OMM is safe, it should be used as a first line treatment for musculoskeletal pain and other conditions, before other less safe treatments are tried.

The second step is your leadership has also arranged a for television spot on CBS prime time, to be aired on May 15^th in the New York area. This will be about what is an osteopathic physician, and why would you wan to get treated by one with OMM. After the spot has aired, we will have the rights to it, so that it could be embedded on member’s websites, for potential patients to see.

The next thing that your leadership has done is set up a “practice management seminar”. How to set up, manage, run a practice, and thrive in the practice of medicine today.

We have also started a “Leadership development-training” program, so we can be more professional in how we interact with our selves, and how we interact with the world. This will focus on team building, communication skills, and problem solving, and budgeting.

To do all of these things, we need to work as a team, all going toward the same goal at the same time. This is critically important.

The academy leadership can’t do this alone. We need you to be a part of it. We need you to volunteer what it is that you are able and willing to do. Help the cause by joining a committee, contribute to FORCE or the Golden Ram. If you have ever thought about writing, now is a good time to take up the pen and publish, so that we have more literature to share among ourselves and with our MD colleagues. As you know, we will soon be getting much closer with the MD’s than we have ever been before. The other thing is public lectures, even if they are free, to the public. Let the people in your area know what you have to offer to them. Also let them know that you care about the whole person, not just their nose, or arm, or liver, or foot.

If we make a united front, and know where it is that we want to go, I am confident that by the year 2025, we will have a significant impact on the rest of the medical world, and can lead them in a way that less people suffer form iatrogenic effects. This would make a dramatic reduction in patient’s suffering.

Thank you very much.